Bubbles Bar & Bistro ordered to wind up over alleged debt
THE future of a popular Brisbane restaurant is up in the air, with the ATO seeking court orders to wind up the company behind it over an alleged debt of more than $400,000.
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IT sure looks like the diverse hospitality empire built up by Damian Griffiths in Brisbane is falling apart.
The ATO has just sought Federal Court orders to wind up his Bubbles Bar & Bistro company over an alleged debt of $423,491.
That’s the entity that trades as Les Bubbles, the Parisian-style bistro in the Valley once operated by others as a notorious bath house and massage parlour in the pre-Fitzgerald days.
Just two months ago Griffiths presided over a lavish party there for a 400-strong crowd as the venue celebrated its second anniversary.
Earlier this month, the tax man won court approval for liquidators to be appointed over Griffiths’ entity KTG Bakeries, which collapsed owing $875,778. That company ran his Chester Street Cake Shop group.
In a rather curious move, Griffiths forked out more than $1100 last week to change the names of three of his most prominent companies, Bubbles Bar & Bistro, Doughnut Time and Alfred & The Kid.
Each is now known only by their respective ACN numbers. The change will make it harder for those owed money to recognise the company when they review credit-check sites.
Griffiths did not respond to phone and email messages yesterday seeking comment. He has not lodged a defence in the Bubbles case, which is set down for a first hearing on December 15. The twin blows from the ATO follow a series of other financial dramas that have recently engulfed Griffiths, who shelled out $22,000 in May to end a wind-up drama threatening another one of his companies.
He is still battling his former accounting firm in court over more than $300,000 in allegedly unpaid fees as the CreditorWatch website shows that 10 of his firms have had default judgments for failure to pay debts.
REVOLVING DOOR
A BLOKE with 30 years experience in the hotel game has been tapped as the new boss of Tattersalls Club.
Members of Brisbane’s male-only bastion learned late last week that David Bark would start as CEO in the new year.
He replaces Mark Woolf, who announced his departure in August after only two years at the helm and provided no reason for his exit. Woolf started work this month as MD of a management group in Sydney. Bark comes to his new role following an extended stint in China, where he is GM of the Grand Mercure Oriental Ginza Shenzhen Hotel in Guangdong province.
SLICE OF DRAMA
DOMINO’S boss Don Meij may be based in Brisbane but you can be sure his gaze will be fixed on Sydney over the next three weeks.
That’s where an epic battle kicked off in court yesterday between the pizza giant and technology company Precision Tracking.
The start-up firm is seeking a multimillion-dollar payout after alleging that Domino’s stole its GPS driver-tracking system technology. Domino’s, which rolled out its live-tracking system in 2015 with Navman Wireless, has denied any wrongdoing.
Domino’s sued Precision last year after ditching a three-year deal for them to deploy the technology.
Meij and his lieutenants have challenged Precision’s patent and alleged they breached confidentiality agreements.
Precision maintains Domino’s “reverse engineered’’ its patented technology and improperly shared it with Navman.
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