Boom Boom Burgers at Chevron Island latest Gold Coast restaurant to close

A popular burger joint launched by a Gold Coast Michelin star chef has closed in the latest of a string of local restaurants to shut down.

Boom Boom Burgers signature l"smoking burger". Pic by David Clark

A POPULAR burger joint launched by a Gold Coast Michelin star chef has been closed in the latest of a string of local restaurants to shut down.

Boom Boom Burgers announced the closure in an online post, saying its lease had been finalised for the Chevron store but that its sister outlet, Boom Boom Burger Bar at Coolangatta, would remain open.

Boom Boom burgers was launched in 2015 by Meyjitte Boughenout, a twice-awarded Michelin chef who previously ran fine dining outfit Absynthe Restaurant in Q1.

It was known for its signature Smoking Hot burger, served under a glass dome which was lifted at the table to release a campfire cloud of scented smoke.

Mr Boughenout said he’d sold the Chevron Island business two and a half years ago, but retained the Boom Boom Burgers intellectual property.

Boom Boom Burgers signature puffed potatoes. Pic: David Clark

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The French-born chef launched Boom Boom in 2015 after more than a decade running Surfers Paradise fine-dining icon Absynthe, which was voted Queensland’s best restaurant five years in a row by Gourmet Traveller.

The company that launched the shuttered Chevron Island restaurant, Boom Boom Burgers Pty Ltd, of which Mr Boughenout is sole director, is the subject of ASIC strike-off action.

The chef has registered three other similarly-named Boom Boom companies, which do not have ABNs associated with them, and also has a hospitality-based consultancy called Cayenne Consulting, which he registered in April this year.

The Chevron store’s operators did not respond to phone calls or online messages.

The Bulletin understands the Coolangatta outlet is sub-let by a different operator.

Meyjitte Boughenout at his Absynthe Restaurant in 2006.

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Absynthe Group was wound up by Mr Boughenout and placed into administration in August 2011, but the Q1-based restaurant continued to operate until 2015.

The closure of Boom Boom is the latest in a slew of recent restaurant shutdowns, including another at Chevron Island in That Italian Place and fellow Italian favourite Cicchetti at Isle of Capri.

Boom Boom Burgers on Chevron Island has closed. Pic by David Clark

The companies behind acclaimed restaurants Etsu Izakaya and Commune cafe have also gone belly-up with debts of more than $770,000 in tax and staff entitlements, although those businesses have continued to trade.

Restaurateurs Mitch and Nerissa McCluskey have retained both venues without skipping a beat by selling the businesses to new companies, also owned and operated by them, before the old companies collapsed.

The coupled described the liquidations as a “restructure”. The liquidator is investigating.