Golden Age: Restaurateur Billy Cross reveals why beachfront food and beverage hubs will boost the Gold Coast’s international standing

A LEADING Gold Coast entrepreneur, entertainment and festival bigwig reveals why beachfront food and beverage hubs will take the Gold Coast “next level”.

I HAVE been a massive supporter of enhancing the city and its tourism offer with proper commercialisation of beach areas for the past 10 years.

I feel like we are a progressive city and we should look at commercialising the beaches. Obviously, we already do a lot there with the Schoolies festival on the Surfers Paradise beachfront and the upcoming SandTunes concert festival that will be on Coolangatta’s beachfront. There is opera, there are carols, so things have been moving forward.

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Billy Cross. Photographer: Liam Kidston.

But we have 42 kilometres of coastline and if we have maybe four to five separate areas, one at Surfers Paradise, at Main Beach, at Burleigh — just as examples — and have designated little spots where we have the ability to commercialise that part, I’m telling you, it would be amazing.

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The famous Surfers Paradise skyline

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It would be a huge tourism attraction just like many places have overseas.

It would be governed just the same way bars and restaurants are governed at the moment. There would be strict licensing conditions, strict operating hours and an aim to really embrace the most amazing asset we have here and complement that with amazing restaurants and bars.

One thing that should be clear is this is not about impacting the natural asset — you would not be taking over the whole beach.

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Design wise, creatively, you would have consultation with high-level architects, Queensland State Government, the Gold Coast City Council and make sure what is created blends into the natural landscape.

It would all have to be approved subject to conditions and one condition would be these setups are not going to be smack on the beach.

We don’t want it to be physically on the sand, in the water — it would be on the foreshore facing the water and have the aspect of the beach as its outlook.

If we are seriously talking about tourism then we have to go to the next level with this.

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Billy says the Gold Coast has the perfect landscape for it.

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I see it really as a breakfast, lunch and early evening dinner and bar service. I can’t see that it would be going too late at night.

You have all these places that do this already — Waikiki in Hawaii, Mykonos, St Tropez, Majorca in Spain, Sardinia. And it is amazing — people go there and say ‘why are we don’t doing this in Australia and on the Gold Coast which is the perfect landscape for it’.

Billy Cross is an entertainment guru, entrepreneur, Nineteen bar and restaurant partner