FIRST FOR NINETEEN
Swanky Nineteen draws VIP crowd but proud to be ‘by locals for locals’
EXECUTIVE chef Kelvin Andrews has dished it up to some of the biggest celebrities over the past 12 months, from Matt Damon to Johnathan Thurston. Tonight, he and the Nineteen team will be the stars of the show as the rooftop bar celebrates its first birthday.
THE celebrity roll call of A-listers to go through Nineteen at the Star is impressive.
Sprint champion Usain Bolt; movie stars Chris Hemsworth, Matt Damon and Margot Robbie; anyone who is anyone in Australian TV; NRL legend Johnathan Thurston ... the list goes on.
Despite all that, the Gold Coast hospitality dream team behind the swanky bar-raising rooftop venue in Broadbeach’s Darling suite hotel tower say just as importantly it is a place “by locals for locals”.
Jackie and Billy Cross, who oversee the bar and lounge operation, along with good friend and restaurateur Simon Gloftis who runs the restaurant, reflected yesterday on a whirlwind 12 months at the helm.
The trio revealed despite many big-name patrons, 80 per cent of clientele are local Gold Coasters.
Mrs Cross said her highlight remained the launch party 12 months ago just prior to the Commonwealth Games when Nineteen hosted private parties for the Australian swim team the Dolphins and basketballers, the Boomers.
“Nineteen was embraced and seeing locals just really lap it up has been so rewarding for me,” she said yesterday ahead of tonight’s first birthday party.
“You don’t get that much out of celebrities sometimes. But it is so rewarding to have locals come up and say over and over ‘This is fantastic’.
“It has become synonymous with style, elegance and class – who doesn’t want to feel that way? But it’s accessible and run by locals for locals.”
Mrs Cross admits she was initially hesitant when Star Entertainment Group brought the trio on board to create the venue before the Darling tower was even built.
“I was a little bit resistant because we had been out of the industry so many years but Billy sold the dream,” she said.
Mr Cross at the height of his nightclub-owning days once
had nine Surfers Paradise hotspots before selling out in the early 2000s. Mrs Cross said: “We definitely knew it was going to bit of a game-changer, a great partnership and knew something special was going to happen. We are giving Sydney and Melbourne a run for their money and we’re up there.
“It’s no longer ‘Oh the Gold Coast’.”
Star’s $850m upgrade and Nineteen have been credited with helping attract the Logies TV awards and EuroVision.
It opens to the public tonight from 9.30pm after a VIP party.