‘End of an era’: Gambaro Seafood restaurant to close after 70 years

It’s served over a million mud crabs and some of the world’s biggest celebrities including Pavarotti and Ed Sheeran, but now the Brisbane dining icon will dish up its final dinner.

Donny, John, Joyce and Frank Gambaro toast the end of an era in Petrie Terrace. Picture: Josh Woning

After seven decades, one million kilograms of cooked prawns and 800,000 dozen oysters, Brisbane dining institution Gambaro Seafood Restaurant in Petrie Terrace is set to close its doors.

The Caxton St icon, which opened in 1953 before moving across the road to its current home 42 years ago, will serve its last lobster mornay on October 31 before moving to a new location.

It marks the end of an era for the Gambaro family, with three generations of the now-famous local hospitality clan behind the venue, including grandfather Giovanbaptista, sons Michael and Domenico, and grandsons John, Donny and Frank.

“It’s sad, it’s really sad,” said John Gambaro of shutting the Brisbane landmark, which helped raise millions of dollars for charity.

“For us, it’s not just moving out, we’re leaving one of the homes we grew up in.”

The closure comes after the hospitality dynasty sold the building and connecting hotel the restaurant resides in to the NRL in 2022.

The deal included the Gambaro family staying on to run the restaurant, but that deal expires at the end of this month.

Gambaros Seafood Restaurant will move somewhere “on the water”.

“We’re all emotional about it, but it’s the right time and we’re looking beyond and to the future,” John Gambaro said.

That future will include running the culinary clan’s latest restaurant, Black Hide Steak and Seafood, which just opened at the new Queen’s Wharf development in Brisbane City, as well as their other restaurants Persone in Brisbane’s CBD and Pipi’s and Awaken at Coolangatta on the Gold Coast.

The brood will also transform their Caxton St Black Hide steakhouse into Black Hide Steak and Seafood on Wednesday, with it to act as a sister venue to the City operation of the same name.

All their staff will be redeployed to the family’s other restaurants.

But most excitingly for the loyal patrons of Gambaro Seafood Restaurant, the family is looking for a new home for the dining favourite.

“Wherever it will be, it’ll be on the water,” said John Gambaro, not ruling out a move outside Brisbane for the 71-year-old restaurant, which has hosted everyone from Luciano Pavarotti and Dolly Parton to Ed Sheeran and Bob Hope, as well as countless high-profile businesspeople, political leaders, sporting stars and local celebrities.

A spokesman for the NRL was unable to meet The Courier-Mail’s deadline on what would happen with the Caxton St restaurant tenancy after the seafood restaurant exited.