Brisbane CBD restaurant closes doors as liquidators seek buyer

ANOTHER Brisbane CBD restaurant, popular with legal eagles and bankers, has closed its doors with liquidators looking for a buyer.

SAD to see another popular CBD restaurant bite the dust. The Survey Co, which opened in Burnett Lane in 2012, closed its doors earlier this week with liquidator Ginette Muller looking for a buyer. The restaurant, owned by Simon Livingstone, was a favourite haunt of lawyers, bankers and judges who liked to chow down on an eclectic menu that included “Moneybag Mushrooms” and “Deathrow Sardines on Toast.”

Muller says everything is ready for a new owner to walk into the place with the tables still set.

The Survey Co had been struggling for lunch time trade recently. Picture: Chris McCormack

We hear things are getting increasingly tough in the restaurant trade.

The Survey Co relied predominantly on lunch trade and that has dried up significantly in the past couple of months.

TRAFFIC JAM

TRANSURBAN boss Scott Charlton may be busy preparing for next week’s half yearly results announcement, but he may want to cast a critical eye over complaints surfacing about the toll road operator’s new payments system in Brisbane.

Nerang resident Bert Wild rang City Beat yesterday to say that before Christmas he tried to pay his toll for using the Gateway Bridge and Clem 7. Bert did not have a GoVia account as he rarely ventures into Brisbane and was visiting his daughter who had just given birth.

After being put through to Transurban’s call centre, Bert was told the company was upgrading its software system and they had no record of him crossing the bridge. This was despite signs at the entrance to the bridge saying tolls can be paid within three days of travel by calling a certain number.

Transurban bos Scott Charlton. Illustration: Brett Lethbridge

Bert was further told he may have received a free trip because of the glitch. Six weeks later however a bill arrived with administration fees attached, meaning his $9 two-way trip over the Gateway turned into $28.

“They are a nightmare to deal with and I don’t know why they still have those signs if they cannot facilitate payments,” says Bert, who adds Transurban waived the fee when he complained.

Transurban says it has upgraded its operations, shifting to a system of “road passes” that are valid for 30 days but preclude paying for single trips.

It maintains people can still arrange payment over the phone. Bert’s experience is almost exactly the same as another motorist who contacted City Beat earlier this week. One hopes the system is sorted out before thousands of out of towners converge on Brisbane region for the Commonwealth Games.

BONDING EXERCISE

BOND trading is usually associated with the gilded skyscrapers of Wall Street or The City in London. But Brisbane has a growing little community of bond traders and experts. FIIG Securities, the country’s leading fixed-income firm, now has a staff of 55 after opening an office here 20 years ago.

FIIG has just appointed Stephen Mackie as its Brisbane-based director of fixed income, marking a return to the city by the financier who left way back in 1992. “I feel a little bit like Rumplestiltskin,” the former St Laurence’s College student says. “Brisbane has changed so much – it’s now a cosmopolitan city of two million people.”

Mackie, who had stints with the Royal Bank of Canada and Commonwealth Bank in London, says bonds are becoming more attractive to investors in an age of gyrating equity markets.

He says that unlike the Europeans, Australians have not traditionally considered bonds an essential part of an investment portfolio. But with the Baby Boomers retiring and wanting a stable source of income that may be about to change.

GOOD ISSUE

GOOD to see local business types out and about selling the Big Issue this week as part of a campaign to help the homeless and disadvantaged. Among those taking part in Queensland were Herbert Smith Freehills partner Michael Coonan, NAB Queensland State Manager Paul Collins, Brisbane Lions Football Club boss Greg Swann, MLC Queensland state manager Matthew Vandermeer, Clayton Utz Brisbane partner in charge Barry Dunphy and Corrs Chambers Westgarth partner Helen Clarke.