Bar boss quits with warning for Surfers
Ave across the Gold Coast Highway;
• The council and Gold Coast Waterways Authority for what he calls slow progress on a riverside masterplan aimed at transforming the area into the city’s version of Southbank in Brisbane;
• Bikies for brawling in Broadbeach in late 2013, which he says had a lingering impact on the reputations of Broadbeach and Surfers Paradise in the minds of locals;
• Surfers Paradise Alliance (SPA) for an events program he says is too heavily focused at the beach end;
• Himself, saying on date nights with his partner they never think to go to Surfers because the restaurants from Mermaid Beach south to Palm Beach now are so good.
“The trend is Mermaid down to Palm Beach with all those great little bars and restaurants full Monday to Thursday when Surfers is dead,” Mr Cerantonio said.
“I’m selling because I don’t see hope for Surfers. There may be hope because of the Commonwealth Games but I don’t think I'll survive that long. It’s in danger of becoming another Tedder Avenue – a ghost town,” he said of Main Beach’s formerly bustling hub.
“There is no reason for people to come to Surfers. I don’t see any light at the end of the tunnel – not just for me but everybody.”
Mr Cerantonio said the trend for locals to stay away from entertainment precincts in favour of something closer to home accelerated after the 2013 bikie brawl amid shocked diners in Broadbeach.
“What I saw from then on was not that people were scared to come into town anymore but it was, ‘Why would I bother with that crap?’
“Now people think, ‘I can go to Etsu at Mermaid, any of the great bars in Burleigh, stay till midnight, have a great night and go home’,” he said.
Mr Cerantonio plans to keep the Howl rights in case he ever revives the brand but if he had his time again in Surfers he said a specialist steak and seafood restaurant with entertainment would probably have worked better.
Mr Cerantonio said the council needed to speed up riverside redevelopment work.
“I wouldn’t have come if it wasn’t for riverside being launched by council and saying it was going to be done,” he said.