01
We check the diary
Your request lands with the host, who keeps an actual paper book. We look at the night you asked for, table or poker seat or both, and see what's free.
Booking received · Happy Daydreams
Thanks, your request
is in the book
We've got your enquiry at 1 Esplanade: dinner, a poker seat or the whole room. A person reads every request and rings or writes back, usually the same day.
What happens next
Three steps, and only the last one's yours
Nothing here is automatic. The book is a real book, kept by people, and this is roughly how your request moves through it.
Can't wait?
Things move fastest by phone: +64 9 352 8417. Or write to happydaydreams@gmail.com with your night and your numbers.
02
We ring or write back
Expect a call or an email, usually same-day. If your poker night is full we'll suggest the nearest one with space.
03
You take your seat
Name in the book, seat at the table. On poker nights the list is read at 6.45, cards from seven.
Booked by phone already? Then this page is just the internet agreeing with you. Nothing else to do.
While you wait
A little light reading for the interim
Confirmation's coming either way. Meanwhile, here's how to spend the anticipation.
The menu
Dinner runs Wednesday to Sunday, 5pm–10.30pm. Consider it the traditional warm-up before any poker night worth the name.
See what's cookingPoker nights
The hour-by-hour, the three weekly games, and what a first poker night at the Esplanade actually feels like.
How it worksEvents
Long lunches, producer dinners and the Saturday tournament social: poker with a bracket and a prizegiving.
What's onFind us
We're the warm windows at 1 Esplanade, South Hill. Map, phone and parking notes live on one page.
Contact details
Request
received
received
Good to know
A few notes before the night
- Held tables and poker seats are released at 6.45pm. Running late? Ring ahead and we'll mind your chair.
- Evenings here are 18+ across the room, dinner and poker alike, so bring ID if you're blessed with a young face.
- Allergies, vegetarians, feeding a small army: reply to your confirmation or write to happydaydreams@gmail.com and the kitchen will sort it.
- We're at 1 Esplanade, South Hill, parking along the waterfront and five minutes' walk from the Victorian precinct.
If it's a poker night
How your evening runs
The rhythm of a Thursday or Saturday, for anyone who hasn't done it with us yet. Dinner stays dinner; the cards wait their turn.
Before 6.45
Eat like everyone else
Poker guests eat in the dining room same as anyone. If dinner's in your booking, that's the slow part of the night.
6.45pm
Your name gets read
The host calls the list and chips get sorted to tables. A held seat that hasn't shown goes back to the floor.
From 7pm
Cards
New faces get ten minutes with the dealer first. Supper lands at the table around nine, between hands.
Close
Counted, toasted, done
Winnings settled and the prizegiving over, the card room folds back into the restaurant by midnight.
Meanwhile, in the room
What you booked into
All
noted
noted
See you at
the Esplanade
Dinner, poker or a whole table of both: we'll have the chairs out and the oven hot. Anything else, you know where we are.
+64 9 352 8417 · happydaydreams@gmail.com · 1 Esplanade, South Hill, Oamaru 9400