John Cannuli’s DeNiro’s Kitchen & Bar Hope Island in liquidation after court order over floor debt

A Gold Coast restaurant and bar run by a race car champion has gone into liquidation. Find out why

A Hope Island restaurant and bar run by a former drag car champion has gone into liquidation after failing to pay a carpet company.

DeNiro’s Kitchen & Wine Bar, which is solely directed by former bankrupt John Cannuli, 49, was wound up in the Brisbane Supreme Court on April 2.

The Gold Coast Bulletin has been unable to contact Mr Cannuli.

DeNiro’s had been open for less than a year at the Hope Island Central shopping centre, next to Saltwater Creek.

DeNiro's Restaurant at Hope Island is in liquidation.

DeNiro's Restaurant at Hope Island is in liquidation.

The Italian-styled restaurant and “piano bar” was wound up by Specialty Carpets at Underwood.

Liquidator Chris Cook, of Worrell’s, said the quantity of debt owed by the restaurant company was not yet known.

The restaurant was closed this week, with chairs and other furniture still set up at eating areas inside and outside.

John Cannuli.

Mr Cannuli is a former drag racer and his wife, Kirsten Tucker, is from a family of motor-heads.

Her brother Shane Tucker, also from the Gold Coast, races on the US drag-racing circuit on a team with their father Rob Tucker.

They have no involvement with the restaurant.

Mr Cannuli is also currently facing more than 100 charges after an 18-month Crime and Corruption Commission investigation uncovered alleged fraud against financial institutions and laundering of money from serious criminal offences in 2021.

Those matters are due before Brisbane Magistrates Court on May 3.

Insolvency records show Mr Cannuli was bankrupt from January 2019 to March 2022 over a debt to Burleigh Heads concrete company Hy-tec Industries.

Ms Tucker is also a former bankrupt – from May 2020 to May 2023 – after being pursued over a tax debt.

Kirsten Tucker-Cannuli.

Company records show Mr Cannuli was a disqualified director from November 2017 to November 2021.

The couple had both previously been subject to a creditor’s petition for $76,053 by last-resort lender Circuit Finance in 2016. That petition was dismissed the same year.

The pair, who previously lived in the Logan suburb of Carbrook, are understood to have been living at a Hope Island home owned by Ms Tucker-Cannuli’s parents.

Rob Tucker and his kids Shane Tucker and Kirsten Tucker-Cannuli. Pic Mark Cranitch.

Rob and Shane Tucker have had their own share of business troubles, with their Auzmet construction companies collapsing in 2018 with debts of more than $1.3m.