Wellington, New Zealand record shop opened in 2019 by owner Apa, known online as 'Boss Dude.' The stock spans garage, punk, kraut, and psych rock, plus an expanding world-music section.
Best for Wellington, New Zealand record shop opened in 2019 by owner Apa
Creeps Record Parlour, in Newtown, Wellington, is the third record shop run by owner Apa, who goes by the nickname 'Boss Dude' online. He started in the business in 2011 with business partner Benjamin James at Evil Genius, before the pair relaunched as Death Ray Records on Wilson Street in 2013. When James left in 2014 to open Moon Bar, Apa kept Death Ray running solo for another five years until it closed — at which point regular customers pushed him to reopen next door, smaller, as Creeps Record Parlour in 2019.
The shop's inventory traces back to Apa's Death Ray days: 'trashy b-grade rock and roll,' garage, punk, lo-fi, and indie form the backbone, with a longstanding personal pull toward psych, krautrock, and prog. More recently he's built out a jazz section and leans on the world-music bins — funk, Zamrock, and Ghanaian and Igbo highlife — as a point of pride, while also stocking mainstream pop for younger customers.
The store's interior matches its name: Apa describes the look as 'kitsch weirdo mid-century retro,' filled with vintage salt-and-pepper shakers, old kitchenware, and retro toys and game consoles. He frames the whole approach around unhurried browsing rather than a quick purchase, greeting every customer hello and goodbye where he can.
Hunters and Collectors is a long-running Cuba Street store for vintage and pre-loved fashion, with more than three decades in Wellington. The shop mixes designer consignment with accessible secondhand clothing and accessories.
Iko Iko is an independent, family-owned gift store at 118 Cuba Street, Te Aro, Wellington, selling accessories, books, home decor, stationery and toys. It stocks both its own designs and curated brands including Jellycat, Baggu, Frank Green and Sonny Angels.
L'affare has roasted specialty coffee at its Te Aro flagship since 1990, one of the pioneers of Wellington's café culture. The 145-seat roastery-cafe sells beans, grinders, and espresso machines, including a limited-edition Chocca blend of Peruvian and Indian coffee.
Best for 145-seat roastery-cafe sells beans, grinders, and espresso machines
Since 1990, L'affare has roasted specialty coffee from a flagship at 27 College Street in Wellington's Te Aro neighborhood, growing into one of the pioneers of New Zealand's café culture. The 145-seat cafe and roastery doubles as an eatery and events venue, but the core of the business remains the beans: single origins and blends roasted on-site and sold through the shop and an online store, alongside grinders and espresso machines for home and commercial use.
Among the rotating lineup, the limited-edition Chocca espresso blend stands out — a pairing of Peruvian and Indian coffees built around notes of dark chocolate, burnt caramel, and mixed spice, released periodically rather than kept in permanent rotation. L'affare also supplies cafes and offices across New Zealand with wholesale beans and equipment servicing, and runs barista training for staff and home enthusiasts alike. More than three decades after opening, the operation still centers on the original Te Aro building, where the roastery, cafe, and retail counter share one address rather than being split across separate sites.
La Petite is a chocolaterie in Wellington's Thorndon neighbourhood, hand-making organic, fairtrade, single-origin chocolate bars, bonbons, and drinking chocolate wrapped in compostable packaging. Everything is made and packed in-store at 277 Tinakori Road, with the full range also sold through the shop's online store.
Best for Organic single-origin chocolate bars, bonbons, and drinking chocolate in compostable packaging
Wellington-region menswear maker with roots to 1946, when Alex Harrison bought Bert Churchill's Vivian Street tailoring business. The Rembrandt suit brand launched in 1952; renamed Rembrandt Suits Ltd in 1953, now based in Lower Hutt.
Best for New Zealand suiting and made-to-measure service
Rembrandt's roots trace to 1946, when Alex Harrison, a skilled tailoring cutter, bought an existing tailoring business on Vivian Street in Wellington that had belonged to Bert Churchill, and registered it as a new company at the start of that year. In 1952, staff brainstorming a name for a new suit line settled on 'Rembrandt,' chosen to evoke craftsmanship and artistry — the name reportedly narrowly beat out 'Michelangelo' as a finalist. The following year, in 1953, the company was formally renamed Rembrandt Suits Ltd, the name it has carried since. At a time when bespoke tailoring in New Zealand typically required multiple in-person fittings, Rembrandt aimed to make well-fitting suits more broadly accessible, building garments with details such as unfinished cuffs and adjustable seams that allowed a suit to be refined to an individual customer without a full custom-tailoring process. Production Manager Pat Lyford later played a significant role in modernizing the company's manufacturing, traveling to research updated methods and equipment and helping build the operational systems behind the brand's growth. Rembrandt is today headquartered in Lower Hutt, near Wellington, where its design studio, made-to-measure factory, administration and warehousing are all based, continuing a New Zealand tailoring lineage that now spans nearly eight decades.
Slow Boat Records is one of Wellington’s longest-running independent record shops, founded in 1985. The Cuba Street store carries new and used vinyl and CDs across a broad range of genres and remains a practical stop for browsing local as well as international music.
Best for Long-running independent record store established in 1985
Splendid Photo is an independent New Zealand analog-photography specialist with film processing and scanning services as well as cameras, film and accessories. Its Wellington presence is useful both for buying supplies and for getting film developed.
Best for Independent film, camera, and photography gear
Wellington Apothecary handcrafts plant-based skincare, herbal teas, and tonics in Wellington, New Zealand. Founded by herbalists Jemma Scott, Laura Jansen, and Chantal Cropp in 2014, it also runs a naturopathy clinic and workshops.
Best for Wellington Apothecary handcrafts plant-based skincare, herbal teas, and tonics in Wellington
Wellington Apothecary began in 2014, when herbalists Jemma Scott, Laura Jansen, and Chantal Cropp decided Wellington needed a source of plant medicine actually made by people trained in it. Over a decade later, the trio still formulates the shop's skincare, herbal teas, tonics, and aromatherapy blends by hand, drawing on both Western herbalism and, in products like their Kawakawa Balm, native New Zealand plants. The range spans facial oils and creams — the Restore Facial Oil and Calendula Rose Soothing Skin Cream are among the bestsellers — through to sleep and stress blends like the Sleep Roll On, plus a full apothecary of loose-leaf herbal teas and tonics sold both online and from the Wellington shop. The business has grown into more than a retail counter: it now houses a naturopathy and holistic-therapies clinic offering facials, massage, and counselling, alongside bespoke tea-blending sessions and workshops where customers learn to make their own remedies. It's a model built on the idea that wellness products work better when the people selling them can also explain, in clinical detail, why a calendula cream or a kawakawa balm does what it does.
New Zealand's original craft chocolate maker, Wellington Chocolate Factory makes bean-to-bar chocolate sourced entirely from Pacific Island growers at its Te Aro retail location on Eva Street. The shop is open Tuesday to Sunday and also runs chocolate-making experiences and ships bars and gifts through its online store.
Best for New Zealand's original craft chocolate maker
Ziggurat has sold vintage fashion on Wellington’s Cuba Street since 1980, alongside selected contemporary labels and consignment. The long-running shop is strongest for one-off clothing and accessories with a more curated edit than a general thrift store.
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