The Laboratory
What makes your venue the Best Gastropub in New Zealand?
The Laboratory is a unique venue with a very special team. The building is quirky to say the least, having been newly built in 2015 from mostly recycled materials in the style of a 100 year old industrial premises converted to a pub. With an onsite Brewery and boutique Cinema we are stretching the limits of what a Gastropub is known to be, pioneering a new unique category of establishment. We aim to provide something for everyone, from pets’ day to nerd night, relaxed Sunday music sessions or the booming Oktoberfest Oompah band, we enjoy tapping into niches and giving them a space to flourish.
Describe the experience your customers have at your establishment – what is your food and beverage offering and why do people come back for more?
We are a casual dining brewpub, where we welcome the whole community to gather – children and dogs included. We have a fantastic selection of tapas, larger meals and wood fired pizzas, made in the traditional Neapolitan style, thin with suitable but not excessive toppings of the highest quality ingredients. We brew all of our own beer here in our brewery and are one of the few pubs around to serve real ales from the handpump.
Tell us how you showcase NZ produce / offerings? Does your menu change with the season and how is it locally influenced. How do you accommodate allergy and dietary requirements?
Being located in the small town of Lincoln, we understand the importance of community support. We feel lucky that we are located in an area surrounded by local farmers and we do our best to utilise what they have to offer. Our head chef works closely with local cheesemongers and charcutiers to find the perfect flavour pairings for our menu. Our eggs are provided by a local farmer a short 15 minutes down the road. Even the malt used for our beer is Selwyn grown!
We understand that eating out can be tricky for those who have special dietary requirements and so our menu has been designed with lots of flexibility to cater to all. Around 80% of the items on our menu can be adjusted to meet dietary requirements without losing any of the key flavours.
What are your key points of difference and how have you managed to deliver them?
Our onsite Brewery gives us the ability to craft unique brews that align with our customers wants along with events that we hold. An example of this is our annual Oktoberfest celebration. Every year our brewer crafts authentic German style beers with a Lincoln twist to give our patrons a full immersive experience. By providing such a wide range of craft beer, those who are new to craft beer can always find something to enjoy. We find that our patrons love our beer so much that they want to take some home with them - and they can! All our beers are available to takeaway in our very own Laboratory beer riggers.
Best Known for:
On-site brewery
Boutique cinema
Oktoberfest celebrations
Please describe your commitment to sustainability.
We love to reuse whatever we can - just take a look at our gorgeous wooden tables, retro chairs, pre-loved crockery and bone handled knives! We are big believers of repairing not replacing. We are committed to managing our waste responsibly and look to use suppliers that show the same commitment to sustainability.
Have you won any awards in the recent past? Tell us about them.
Selwyn Responsible Business Awards 2022 - Gold Award
Sensational Selwyn Awards 2016 - Large Business Winner
Please describe how you create ambience.
You will always find funky background music at The Laboratory and on Sundays we have live music sessions where we invite up and coming local artists to showcase their talent. We set the lighting with our 'old school' lamps and light fittings to a perfect level to create a cosy welcoming vibe, and the temperature is always just right whether it needs to be cool from the sweltering outside heat, or warm and toasty by our fires when it's chilly outside.
