Cairns party scene comes alive again
Venues open doors with conditions
THE party is back on in Cairns with venues emerging from lockdown in style at the weekend. Kaisee Muir, Johanna Williams, Georgie Keller and Tamika Smith enjoyed the nightlife at Gilligan’s on Saturday.
CAIRNS nightlife has woken up from its COVID-19 hibernation as pubs and clubs in the city overcame awkward restrictions to show punters a cracking good time.
Venues throughout Cairns made the most of the new normal, using staggered booking systems and monitoring punters to stay within the social distancing rules.
Gilligan’s promised patrons “VIP service for everyone” as customers were required to be seated.
Dancefloors remained off limits and gathering at bars was also not allowed under current restrictions.
Rattle N Hum manager Ben Power said the new mode of operation took some adjusting to.
“It was a learning curve with the restrictions in place,” Mr Power said.
“Overall we had a good weekend.”
Speaking before the traditional Sunday session, Mr Power said the venue had taken 250 covers in its first weekend since the coronavirus shutdown had ground the Cairns nightlife to a screeching halt.
The restrictions on bar service dictated that venues serve customers at tables with four square metres per person.
“It felt like we were doing more work for less money,” Mr Power said.
“Because we could only have table service, our numbers were down by a third.”
The challenging start was taken in good spirits by most customers, who were happy to be out on the weekend.
“Ninety per cent of people were understanding and happy to wait that minute or two,” Mr Power said.
Rattle N Hum did not reopen earlier this month when patrons were capped at 20 at any one time.
“We took it slow and easy and watched how it worked,” Mr Power said. “That was very helpful for us.”
The Cock and Bull at Cairns North had a cracking start to the weekend with about 300 covers served by Saturday night.
“For the first nights, it was great,” general manager Alex Johnston said.
“Everybody was understanding; we are running with one kitchen at the moment.”
Like many venues in Cairns, Cock and Bull staff became ad hoc renovators during the shutdown.
“It is great to be back on the tools,” Mr Johnstone said.
“We have been flat out doing renovations on the pub that we had been wanting to do for years.”
The staged easing of restrictions saw clubs and restaurants permitted to serve up to 20 patrons from June 1 and from June 5 larger venues were allowed 20 in each separately defined area.
Cotton Club owner Dominic Davies said “it was nice to be open”.
“We made a lot of people happy and I’ll take that,” Mr Davies said. “We have been booked out with all our regulars and we have a strong Sunday crowd that came in.
“We are taking bookings but we are not kicking people out, that’s for sure.”
He said the Woolshed would reopen its doors this weekend.
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