And when he held a Burns creative writing fellowship at the University of Otago in 1978, he was living in rather impersonal digs in a rooming house in nearby Elder St.
He usually found plenty more companionship in the Cook than at his official home address.
And, during summer that year, he found his university English department office in the nearby Arts Building rather stifling, with sun blazing through the windows.
So he spent quite a bit of his time in the latter part of the afternoons that year in the Captain Cook, not doing much drinking but doing quite a bit of writing in a notebook. And sensibly keeping up with the test cricket on television.
Olds held the fellowship for the first term that year, and playwright Roger Hall - then holding a fellowship for his second year - bought him a drink in the Cook to mark his arrival.
At its best, the Cook was not just warm and friendly, but was particularly welcoming to strangers and outsiders, including visitors from elsewhere in the country, or overseas.
And that is where, at different stages over the years, he met two girlfriends, one from the Netherlands and another from England.
In the Cook's downstairs back bar, you could expect to run into late former Burns Fellow Hone Tuwhare, or visual artist the late Ralph Hotere.
And in the downstairs corner lounge bar, the late Australian-born English department senior lecturer and poetry reviewer Dr Bill Dean held court with various friends.
A North Island friend and fellow poet recently commented that Olds (69) had written more published poems about the Captain Cook than anyone else.
Olds acknowledges he has penned quite a few poems referring to the pub either directly or indirectly, but carries the claimed distinction lightly.
In a poem, Walking Down Elder Street, published in the mid-2000s, he considers the much more gaunt alternatives available elsewhere to the more welcome prospect of being ''at the cross-roads of the Best Little Bar in Aotearoa''.
The Cook, he recalls, was particularly well located, at a crossroads of north-bound State Highway One and Albany St, the latter leading to the university campus. And pathways across the nearby Museum Reserve also stretched on to the Otago Museum or, again, to the campus.
In probably his most quoted Cook poem, A Cold August Night in the Captain Cook Tavern, the poem's narrator notes: ''We drink our cool/beer slowly'' and ''From time/to time the street door/opens & an overcoat full of dry ice/ bursts in.''
The pub's appeal for him was not primarily the alcohol, which he later gave up completely in 1990. It was a place where he was recognised as a published poet, unlike in the outside world, where he often tended to think of himself as ''unemployed''.
And here was the chance to catch up with people he already knew and to meet others for the first time.
''It was a second home for a while - it might have been my first home.
''When you live in a rooming house you're just in a very impersonal room. It's just a place to sleep and use the facilities - you don't really feel at home at the place that is supposed to be your home.''
The Cook ''had a good feel about it'' and it was also ''very welcoming'' to strangers, including someone like himself, who had been born in Christchurch and lived in Auckland before heading South.
Auckland-based political commentator and ODT columnist Chris Trotter says the Cook also played a special role in his life. Trotter completed a BA majoring in history and English at Otago University in 1980 and edited the student newspaper Critic in 1981.
It was a vibrant mixing point for people from many other places and walks of life, including working-class drinkers in the downstairs back bar, university students and various academic staff, including Prof Jim Flynn, around the tables in the corner bar, particularly in the pre-university Staff Club days. Not to mention some memorable kiwi bands upstairs.
In a posting on his blog site, titled Bowalley Road, Trotter said the Cook had been a ''fantastic place'' in its heyday, including the 1970s and early 1980s.
A mix of ''poets, painters, musicians, drug dealers, prostitutes, construction-workers, trade union officials and university students'' drank there and ''ideas of all kinds were discussed and debated''.
''When the supply of chairs ran out, people simply grabbed a beer crate from `out the back' and squeezed in next to their mates.''
Trotter vividly recalls the Cook in a song called The Last Hotel, which he wrote in 1980 and dedicated to former Cook licensee Garry Reddington:
I sit in the corner just taking things slow
For the price of a beer it's a pretty good show
'Til the barman collects all the bottles and calls
''Time now folks, please, we're closing the doors!''
