Central Coast nightclubs: Key Largo, Beachcomber, Joes Garage, Club Troppo part of history
With the Central Coast in lockdown we hit the rewind button to a time when nightclubs ruled and people flocked from all over to hit Key Largo, Joe’s Garage and the biggest of all Club Troppo.
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In its heyday in the late 1990s and early 2000s Club Troppo was selling nearly 3000 cans and plastic bottles of Carlton Cold and Red Bull in a single night.
They were two of the most popular drinks with overall bar takings reaching anywhere from $70,000 to $100,000 in the six hours the club was open from 9pm to 3am.
The queue to pay the $15 entry fee stretched down the stairs, out the front door of Central Coast Leagues Club, down Baker St and around the corner towards Dane Drive.
And it wasn’t just Coasties keen to hit the dance floor, swill booze and hopefully “pick up”.
In the days well before social media, or even before the internet really took hold, such was the iconic venue’s reputation young people would come from Newcastle, Western Sydney and as far as Shoalhaven just to get into Club Troppo.
Former DJ Phil Brandel spun the decks at Club Troppo from 1998 to 2001 mostly in the Retro Room out the back.
He said a lot of marriages, and probably more babies were conceived, as a result of people meeting at Club Troppo, which was voted by a popular men’s magazine at the time as “the easiest place to pick up in Australia”.
Brandel said young adults these days would struggle to comprehend the shear number of people crowded into the cavernous smoke-filled thumping auditorium, which would regularly feature guest DJs, comedians such as Eric Bana and various TV, radio and music personalities.
Club Troppo opened on November 3, 1992, and quickly became a Central Coast institution every Saturday night and Sundays on long weekends until December 2, 2006, when the Leagues Club board voted to pull the pin.
Brandel said its longevity was reflected in the changing fads of its patrons from spiky hair, perms and undercuts to double denim and hibiscus-adorned Hawaiian shirts.
“One thing I have never been able to work out was why it closed?” he said.
“It was still popular, it was still attracting thousands of people.”
Daniel Brian was at the opening night of Club Troppo as a fresh-faced 18-year-old patron.
The former Central Coast Leagues Club operations manager was also there when staff flicked on the house lights one last time and swept the last of the club’s patron out in the early hours of Sunday morning.
He knows better than anyone the pressure the club was under.
Mr Brian said the nightclub went from selling two pallets each of Carlton Cold and Red Bull to selling two pallets of water.
“The water sales were almost as high as the grog sales.”
Central Coast Leagues Club found itself on the list of the state’s most violent venues which saw it increase security from 15 guards to control anywhere from 1600 to 2500 young people to 66 in the club, 12 patrolling the area between the former Joe’s Garage and Iguana’s and a further four on each courtesy bus.
The Office of Liquor and Gaming and police were cracking down hard on responsible service of alcohol and venues were under the hammer.
Large nightclubs were becoming financially untenable.
“It was slowly loosing it’s lustre because of the security and the police,” he said.
“When it closed we moved it downstairs with another operator but it wasn’t Troppo.
“It was not a popular decision but the cops would have ended up shutting us down.
“All of us (staff) were assaulted at some stage,” he said.
“I only got hit twice. When you went to work from 6pm to 4am you never knew what you were going to get.”
Smoking bans were also starting to come into effect and one by one the largest nightclubs on the coast started to fold.
“Those days are all gone,” he said.
However Mr Brian has some colourful memories of the club’s halcyon days including the popular downstairs nightclub “Rage With Ray”, which was more colloquially known as “grab a granny”.
One night he had to eject a bunch of intoxicated NRL players, one of which was so drunk he had wet his pants, after they kicked on following their game at Gosford Stadium.
Another night he said he had to kick out another NRL player who was caught having sex with a woman more than double his age.
“I said to him ‘mate, she looks about 60, she could be your grandmother’,” Mr Brian said.
“He said ‘it was dark, I couldn’t see’.”
There were other popular nightclubs on the coast at the time including the Beachcomber and “Woodies” on a Friday night at the former Woodport Inn, now Sunken Monkey, at Erina.
Joes’s Garage in the former Gosford Hotel, with it’s 5am closing time was the place people kicked on after Troppo, while the other iconic coast venue was Key Largo at Crown Plaza Terrigal.
It eventually called it a night in December 2008, after almost 20 years at the forefront of the coast’s night-life.
Crown Plaza Terrigal general manager Cameron Abbott said the now Terrigal Beach House has had many lives over the years, evolving with the times.
“Since its inception as Florida Beach Bar and Key Largo nightclub, the venue has endeared itself to a lot of people and is part of the lives of many Coasties,” he said.
“We have people working here who’s parents met at or worked at Key Largo nightclub. The venue is an institution in so many ways and we embrace the evolving dining and bar trends of today to keep sharing good times with our locals and visitors.”
The Beachcomber Hotel, affectionately known as ‘The Beachie’ was the place to be for the Central Coast’s youth on a Friday night.
Despite its notoriety as one of the most dangerous pubs in NSW, thousands flocked there weekly for the cheap beers and the appeal of a $5 courtesy bus home for anyone on the northern end of the coast.
And the $4 schooners of Bundy rum always made sure the party was lively to say the least.
There was a cover charge from 9pm, which saw a line up from 8.30pm of people hoping to avoid having to pay to enter with an upstairs room and a downstairs room.
Promotion girls made their way through the throngs of patrons, offering tastes of various new drinks on offer.
Adding to the debauched atmosphere were various poles on elevated platforms patrons would climb and do their best, or worst, dancing depending on their level of intoxication.
The main downstairs bar offered $6 Pulses and the club’s popular signature cocktail the “Peachcomber” with peach schnapps and vodka.
Anyone kicked out and who was desperate enough, would risk slicing their feet open in Budgewoi Lake to try and sneak back in through the beer garden.
It has now transformed into a family-friendly boutique, Hamptons-inspired waterfront venue.
The Toukley hotel, which had a sketchy history over the years, was sold to the Oscars Hotels Group in September 2020 before closing its doors for major renovations.
The popular venue reopened in March and has been busy ever since.
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