Bugger! Ruggers to close amid Crosby Park redevelopment

It’s the end of an era for popular Ruggers Restaurant at Brothers Rugby Club with news the club has decided to wind up the long-standing venue and bring in new operators.

Action at Crosby Park.

The end of an era for popular Ruggers Restaurant at Brothers Rugby Club with news that the venue will be closed next month.

Ruggers owner Matt Moses, who has run the Crosby Park eatery for the past nine years, says he is “gutted” by the club’s decision to bring in new operators but plans to remain in hospitality, possibly running a “dark kitchen” in the area.

“Ruggers was a great venue and well supported by the local community,” he says. “But hospitality is becoming a tough business with thin margins.”

Food is close to Moses’ heart with parents, Larry Moses and Bronwyn Tobin the owners of restaurants such as Wholly Moses, Gekkos, Breakfast Creek Wharf and Squirrels.

Brothers Rugby in a statement said it will put the restaurant operation out for tender to see what the best options are for the site as a mooted redevelopment edges closer.  

Under a proposal released last year as part of the Olympics, Albion Park, the home to metropolitan harness and greyhound racing, would move to different venues and Brothers Rugby and its two playing fields would shift south from Crosby Park and have three new fields where the raceway is now. The club, where PR supremo Geoff Rodgers (illustrated) is the current president, has told members that it would be seeking proposals under a competitive tendering process, including from Moses. Moses however says he is not interested.

Ash Reed and Matt Moses of Ruggers Restaurant & Bar back in 2014.

Rodgers tells City Beat that he is confident a new restaurant operation will be up and running in time for the first Brothers home game of the season on April 15.

The club has told members that the closure of Ruggers related to the pending redevelopment of the club and the board wants to “set a path to maximise the operation of this facility during the interim period.” Other food and beverage operations at the club including Hobbits Bar will continue to operate.

Bubbly hires

Queensland seltzer drinks business Hard FIZZ has added former Carlton and United Breweries chief executive Peter Filipovic to its newly formed advisory board along with former CUB general counsel Zoe Solomon, and Sun Bum founder Adam Francis.

The business heavyweights have been brought in to oversee the brand’s corporate growth in 2023 with the company selling 4.5 million cans since launching while firmly holding onto third position in the independent hard seltzer category.

It’s also generated $19m in retail sales value while being stocked in approximately 3200 outlets nationally, including Coles Liquor stores. Filipovic joins the brand with 25 years’ experience at CUB. “Hard FIZZ is on a steep trajectory and I’m thrilled to be joining its advisory board at this time,” Filipovic says. “The brand’s number one objective in the coming years is growth and that’s where I believe my skill set can help it achieve that goal.”

Peter Filipovic

Going green

Queen’s Wharf developer Star Entertainment Group has secured a 170ha farm in south-east Queensland to help manage its future carbon emissions reduction and to support biodiversity and native forest regeneration.

The Star will use the land near Gympie as its first carbon credits project, as well as create a nature-based farm partnering with local farmers and through wide scale tree planting support endangered species particularly koalas, with new habitat. The Star Entertainment Group’s head of sustainability Amanda Visser says it has taken two years to bring the project to life as an extension of its sustainability strategy and will directly bolster the company’s target of net-zero. “We will be planting over 100,000 native trees over the next five years to not only generate Australian carbon credit units but also to establish a koala sanctuary and create habitats for local, endangered species,” Visser says.