Gold Coast night life: Hospitality veteran Scott Imlach wants more bars on the Gold Coast, as his latest thrives

The driving force behind the small bar scene on the Gold Coast is hungry for more new venues on the back of his thriving business ventures.

THE driving force behind the small bar scene on the Gold Coast is hungry for more new venues on the back of his thriving business ventures.

Hospitality veteran Scott Imlach says his latest bar, Night Cap, at Nobby Beach has exceeded expectations since opening its doors last month.

Nightcap is one of the Coast’s newests bars.

The business was the first small bar licence to be issued outside of the entertainment precinct and was modelled on the success of his Burleigh bar, Night Jar.

“It’s busy all the time. We’ve got live music seven nights a week. It’s just really cranking to be honest,” Mr Imlach said.

“We always knew it would be good but we just didn’t expect it to be as good as it was.

“There’s nobody doing those style bars that we are doing on the Gold Coast and they are completely different.”

Scott Imlach. Picture: Jerad Williams

Mr Imlach began pushing for small bar licences when he moved to Queensland – via Melbourne – after a 10-year stint in the United Kingdom.

Asked why he wanted a small bar, he said: “Because I couldn’t afford a pub.”

“It was very hard to buy a pub in this sort of area and I wanted to live on the Gold Coast. So, to get into the industry I wanted to be in, I needed to get this small bar licence through,” he said.

But he had also not liked the direction he said Queensland pubs were heading. 

Mr Imlach lobbied the State Government and council for years to secure a small bar licence on the Gold Coast. He said changes to the draft city plan in 2016 made it possible.

Some of the drinks on offer inside Nightcap.

It meant he could operate a small venue without serving food.

The style of venue drew inspiration from the small dive bars across the United States.

“I just happened to go to one … and thought this is a good idea,” Mr Imlach said.

He opened SOHO Place at Broadbeach in 2017 on the back of the amendments and at the time said it would change the city’s night life forever. The venue has since been sold.

Mr Imlach’s venues across the Gold Coast include Hideaway Kitchen and Bar at Broadbeach, Mr Hizola’s at Burleigh and Bine Bar and Dining at Mermaid Beach.

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Some of the quirky features inside the bar.

The hospitality veteran of 25 years worked as a wedding planner in his native New Zealand before taking up a position at Walkabout Inns in the UK, where the venue would attract more than 1000 people,

But it is the smaller venues he is running now on the Gold Coast that he enjoys better.

“There’s nothing like having a big Australian pub either on a sports a day when you’ve got the Rugby World Cup or State of Origin. You’ve got 2000 people jumping down, it’s fantastic,” he said.

“(But) the smaller ones definitely light up my life a little bit better, and are a lot easier to control.”

Mr Imlach said he and his team always had their “eyes and ears open” for new venue locations.

“We want to do more. It’s just a matter of finding the right locations and the right spot and the grungy feel about them,” he said.

Mr Imlach said it had cost about $70,000 to soundproof Night Cap, which was done to keep the neighbours happy.

“We do a lot of research into where we go and how we do it,” he said.