JUNE 2010
BOUTIQUE restaurant chain The Groove Train has spent $2.5 million in the last six months in fit-outs for its 400 George Street and King George Square sites.
Manager Julian Mero says since coming to Brisbane from Melbourne more than two years ago with a Riverside restaurant, he’s found that there’s still room for growth in the high quality casual dining market.
“That led us to 400 George Street, we signed a contract in September last year and were probably looking at it six months before that – it’s going to be an increasingly important legal and business precinct,” he says.
“There’s probably a lot of challenges and we’re still in the early days as at the back of 400 George Street it’s still in construction.
“We see it as a work in progress but we didn’t go into that blindly.”
The restaurant has a ‘warm and comfortable’ wooden interior with a function room Mero hopes will become a commonplace meeting point for lawyers.
“The rough cost of the fit-out there was $1 million. I’d like to say it was less but it ended up as $1 million.”
The Groove Train initially leased 340sqm from Leightons for 400 George, but the land has since been sold to HSBC Trinkhaus and Grosvenor Australia in a joint venture.
The restaurant has 160 seats, while the King George Square restaurant has 280 across 380sqm of space.
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