End of an era as Lobby closes; assets up for grabs on Allbids

Sadly, the Plaka Restaurant at Dickson (for many years before at Mawson) has closed.

Apparently the traditional food they always served wasn’t eclectic enough for today’s palates.

As someone who went through a similar experience when my uncle retired and sold The Tower Restaurant, I can understand the sense of loss of another iconic Canberra restaurant. If there is one good thing to come out of it, it is that in this case the restaurant has simply closed down and people will remember it as a class act.

In our case The Tower Restaurant was sold to the gentleman who went on to operate Autolyse in Braddon which closed in controversial circumstances last week. When he owned The Tower Restaurant after us, he changed the name to Alto and further tried to “de-Moulis” it by changing the phone number. He started a row with the landlord – Telstra – which was played out on the front page of The Canberra Times.

bruce_lord said :

I am concerned that this is another example of canberra development cannibalising itself. There’s no doubt that the Kingston foreshore restaurant strip has hurt both the Manuka and old Kingston restaurants and that Lonsdale st has taken business out of Melbourne and Sydney buildings and from the surrounding areas.

There are also a lot of closed Tuggeranong restaurants in the main centres and throughout the suburbs, but I’m not sure what has caused these closures.

Any tuggers residents know why popular places like Lakeview Chinese and La Pocetta have gone, and we used to like the cheap little Vietnamese at Erindale and then upstairs at the Maram for a drink.

In this case your concerns above would be misguided.

The dispute between landlord and leasee has been ongoing for some time. Like always think there is more to it than the NCA not renewing the lease in 2018.

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/historic-lobby-restaurant-in-parliamentary-triangle-facing-closure-20160513-gou78g.html

My understanding was that the Lobby had not operated as a restaurant for a very long time, rather it was run as a function venue.

Secondly, while the current lessee is selling off all the crockery and fittings, the building remains, and I’ve heard no indication that another tenant couldn’t start up a restaurant there.

I like the look of those blue table glasses. Will wander into the auction site.

Be interesting to know the reason for their closing. Another boarded up empty joint. Can join the ones in Civic.

Given it’s proximity to the Tent Embassy, wouldn’t it be a good idea to have the occupants there move in to the vacant building?

It would increase the status of whoever runs “the tents” and it would remove a blot on the landscape that we are not allowed to talk about when tourists ask us what it represents.

Who knows, maybe our government could establish Australia’s first indigenous restaurant there.

The Lobby got a good run. The initial offer was for a small sandwich kiosk concession; the original Lobby owners took advantage of the wording of the offer and built a whole restaurant for which they paid the taxpayer just the cost of a small kiosk. They would have been making money hand over fist, especially as they catered for politicians and for a long time completely ignored the Canberra visitor market they were supposed to be catering to …

Chris Mordd Richards said :

Wow, end of an era. Interested to know what forced them into having to close. Always seemed popular to me whenever I was nearby, never been able to afford to eat there myself though.

There was press a while back about some alleged requirement by the landord (NCPA I think ?) to refit the interior and do some other works. Something like that anyway. Lessee said it was uneconomic to do that. Very sad to see it go. What an icon. Maybe it will reopen again – or maybe sold off for unit development.

bruce_lord said :

I am concerned that this is another example of canberra development cannibalising itself. There’s no doubt that the Kingston foreshore restaurant strip has hurt both the Manuka and old Kingston restaurants and that Lonsdale st has taken business out of Melbourne and Sydney buildings and from the surrounding areas.

There are also a lot of closed Tuggeranong restaurants in the main centres and throughout the suburbs, but I’m not sure what has caused these closures.

Any tuggers residents know why popular places like Lakeview Chinese and La Pocetta have gone, and we used to like the cheap little Vietnamese at Erindale and then upstairs at the Maram for a drink.

Yeah – the London Burger and Beer in Tuggers across from the Hyperdome closed a while back too. Was good for a cheaper feed and always seemed to be well patronised.

I am concerned that this is another example of canberra development cannibalising itself. There’s no doubt that the Kingston foreshore restaurant strip has hurt both the Manuka and old Kingston restaurants and that Lonsdale st has taken business out of Melbourne and Sydney buildings and from the surrounding areas.

There are also a lot of closed Tuggeranong restaurants in the main centres and throughout the suburbs, but I’m not sure what has caused these closures.

Any tuggers residents know why popular places like Lakeview Chinese and La Pocetta have gone, and we used to like the cheap little Vietnamese at Erindale and then upstairs at the Maram for a drink.