The Matamata Club is a community club on Rawhiti Avenue in Matamata, bringing together dining, sport and social life under one roof. It operates a bar and bistro restaurant, hosts regular events, and runs raffles and member draws on Tuesdays and Fridays. Membership is open to new applicants, with subscriptions payable online.
Dining is central to club life. The kitchen serves a bistro menu alongside bar snacks, buffet menus, and finger food and morning tea options for groups and functions. The club's own food gallery shows the style of cooking on offer: battered fish, beef fillet, lamb with asparagus, pulled pork, steak served with couscous or three veg, and a hearty Kiwi burger, plus ham-and-olive and grape-and-cheese platters for sharing.
Beyond the dining room, the club supports a range of adjuncts - snooker and billiards tables, a bowls section with its own green and playing calendar, and golf, including family golf days. The family programme features face-painting afternoons and fishing competitions, and the club hosts occasion events such as Melbourne Cup celebrations.
Function rooms are available for weddings and other gatherings, and room hire can be arranged through the club. With an active events calendar and a relaxed club atmosphere, the Matamata Club serves as a local hub for a meal, a game, or a special occasion.
The Matamata Club at 13 Rawhiti Avenue is one of those places that quietly anchors a town. Part restaurant, part bar, part sporting hub and part events venue, it brings the Matamata community together over bistro meals, raffles, bowls, snooker and family days out. Whether you are a long-time member or a first-time visitor, club life here is easy to slip into.
The heart of the club week beats on Tuesdays and Fridays, when the club hosts its raffles and member draws — a welcome the club itself promotes alongside the promise of lots more. With a rolling events calendar published on its website, it pays to check what is on before you visit.
The club's restaurant serves from a bistro menu that is updated regularly, with the current edition published on the club's website, alongside a separate bar snacks menu for lighter appetites. The kitchen's repertoire, as shown in the club's own gallery, runs from hearty classics to more composed plates: a Kiwi burger, battered fish, beef fillet, lamb with asparagus, pulled pork, steak served with couscous or with three veg, and sharing platters of ham and olives or grapes and cheese. Bigger gatherings are catered for with a dedicated buffet menu, while a finger food and morning tea menu covers daytime functions and meetings. Dining hours are listed on the club's dining page, so it is worth confirming times before you arrive.
Function rooms are a genuine strength. The club actively invites function bookings and its gallery showcases weddings held on site, alongside photos of the club room. Catering can be handled in-house through the buffet and finger food menus, which makes planning a wedding reception, birthday or work do straightforward. Room hire is also listed among the club's facilities, so smaller meetings and group bookings are covered too.
Beyond the dining room, the club's adjuncts give members plenty to do. Snooker and billiards feature prominently in the club's photos, and bowls is clearly a passion — the gallery includes images of green maintenance and even a South Island bowls tour. Golf rounds out the sporting line-up, with club golf days and a family golf event among the pictures, so there is a section to suit most sporting tastes. Families are part of the picture too: face painting and a family fishing competition appear in the club's Family Fun gallery. And when the big races roll around, expect the club to get behind the action — Melbourne Cup gatherings feature among its facilities photos.
Membership is applied for online, with member benefits set out on the website and subscriptions able to be paid online. The club is governed by an elected board, publishes its by laws and an annual statement of financial performance, and operates a gaming grants programme — the machinery of a properly run members' club. A newsletter keeps members up to date between visits.
You will find the club at 13 Rawhiti Avenue, Matamata 3400. Phone 07 888 7060 or email manager@matamataclub.co.nz for enquiries, function bookings or membership questions. Current restaurant hours, menus and the events calendar are all available on the club's website, where you can also sign up for the newsletter.
In short, the Matamata Club is dinner and drinks, Tuesday raffles, a frame of snooker, a bowls green, a wedding venue and a community fundraiser all in one address. Drop in on a Tuesday or Friday for the draws, settle in for a bistro meal, and you will quickly get a feel for what this club is about.