News & Discussion : New Restaurants, Bars & Night Clubs

[Patrick_27]

Popular Unley Road cafe 'A Mother's Milk' will be opening a second cafe under the same branding at 255 Pulteney Street (opposite side of the laneway to the proposal Sky Adelaide apartments). This part of Pulteney Street has really started to come together since construction of the new hospital got underway, a lot more cafes and restaurants have opened and are actually doing well whereas before it was a dead spot.

[ghs]

Does anyone know what's happened to the hackney hotel ?

Seems like it's closed down.

[Ben]

Does anyone know what's happened to the hackney hotel ?

Seems like it's closed down.

Yes the site is being redeveloped including a refurb of the hotel.

[AndyWelsh]

New KFC at Rundle Square.






Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[SRW]

'Made the hard way'? What a shit slogan.

[Llessur2002]

Oh dear.

HQ Complex nightclub on Hindley St closes down

Once one of the city’s most popular nightclubs, HQ Complex will close down for good.

Adelaide’s premier nightclub of 15 years will shut its doors for good after running into financial difficulties.

HQ Complex today announced it was unlikely to generate enough income to continue trading, opting to close last weekend without telling revellers.

The venue moved to Hindley St in July 2017 after shutting down its premises on North and West Tce, spending $15 million on the relocation.

“It has proven difficult to replicate the old business model at the new location,” a statement read.

“It is not possible to specifically identify the specific reasons for the failure of the business, but it comes at a time where economic activity continues to be sluggish while competition for patrons has significantly increased.”

A source said there had been problems with the business since the death of Rod Rose, the lead figure of a syndicate of investors, who died in January last year.

“He was very much the driving force and things have not been the same without him,” the source said.

When The Advertiser visited the Hindley St venue there was no sign of staff inside.

DJ Matt Watkins, who was supposed to play at the club on the weekend, had his gig cancelled.

Management for Eskimo Joe, scheduled to play there later this month, was contacted for comment about the future of its gig.

Stephen James Jupp, a doorlist promoter for the club, posted on Facebook earlier today to “rest in peace HQ Complex”.

“Due to correct speculation surrounding the club’s future, HQ Complex has now closed business,” he wrote.

“This is such a sad time for a lot of us that work and promote at HQ, everyone has become such a close family and we are so happy that we started at such an amazing venue.”

“Truly is the end of an era.”

Mr Rose, regarded as the premier publican of Hindley St, operated several businesses on the strip including the Rosemont Hotel, which closed in February last year.

His son Stephen, the HQ Complex general manager for several years, and still a director of the company, has not returned calls from The Advertiser.

Mr Rose’s other children David and Gabby have been heavily involved in the family business.

HQ was formerly at 1 North Tce where it closed its doors for a final time in January 2017.

HQ moved premises to 149 Hindley Street and opened in October that year as the largest club in Adelaide featuring restaurants, bars, a coffee shop and function areas.

The three-level club, located next door to the Crazy Horse Revue, has a capacity for 2300 people.

The North Tce venue, which for more than 40 years also housed Bojangles and Joplins clubs, had been known as Heaven since 1993.

Alleged links with SA bikie gangs marred Heaven’s later years and the venue eventually shut in 2005.

Stephen Rose had previously told The Advertiser about the “sleepless nights” that went into planning the relocation and rebirth of Adelaide’s superclub.

From: https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/messenge ... 79cd8cfef3

[SRW]

Hopefully whoever takes over HQ can do something to improve its external appearance.

[Llessur2002]

I always presumed the plan was to paint the concrete white as the renders seemed to suggest.

Maybe the funds ran out?

[TorrensSA]

HQ holds 2300 people, thats insane. How many staff have lots their jobs? It would be mind boggling the amount of money it makes on a Friday or Saturday night. There's a lot of turnover of patrons throughout the night in nightclubs, that could be 5000+ people coming and going.

[cmet]

As someone who went here, it was almost always too big and too empty. I don’t know what can be done here, kind of specialised for a club but like I said the venue is too big 90% of the time

[Patrick_27]

As someone who went here, it was almost always too big and too empty. I don’t know what can be done here, kind of specialised for a club but like I said the venue is too big 90% of the time

Remembering the 2,000+ capacity was over all the levels and all the different spaces within the venue, not just the main room. I think the first sign of trouble was the failed restaurant downstairs that ended up becoming the equivalent to a grotty sports bar. The main band room had a decent enough layout and I would argue it was better than the the old HQ in terms of staging for concerts, but you have to walk a massive flight of stairs to get up there and it doesn't do well as a nightclub layout, the old HQ had a better balance of catering for a nightclub every night and occasional live music venue.

I think the shit of this place closing is that it's a MASSIVE footprint (and ugly af building too), and it won't be easy to palm off to any new operator. The best outcome would be to split up the downstairs space and create new retail spaces (hopefully not another Shisha lounge) and then continue to operate upstairs as a live music venue with other functions. Just a bloody shame that they bulldozed the local heritage listed building on the site only for this venture to fail.

[ghs]

HQ holds 2300 people, thats insane. How many staff have lots their jobs? It would be mind boggling the amount of money it makes on a Friday or Saturday night. There's a lot of turnover of patrons throughout the night in nightclubs, that could be 5000+ people coming and going.

Spending $15 million on a night club which only generates revenue on one or two nights of the week ?
To me that's mind boggling.
They spent way too much money when they did the re-development.

[Mpol03]

And it still looked like a piece of turd.

I agre with the above. Keep the live music space and turn down stairs frontage into either bars, restaurants or some type of creative space.

[RustyCage]

Upstairs was a great place for seeing bands, good size for it, even though the sound was a little average.

Am I right that this was the site of the old
Cartoons?

[ghs]

Yes it used to cartoons nightclub back in the 1990's. Before the redevelopment, the upstairs section (which was
cartoons) was dormant I believe.

It will be interesting to see what happens now. Who's going to buy an oversized night club which isn't profitable ?