Cafe owner evicted, beer turned off and 15 sacked at popular RSL club

A bitter feud has broken out at one of Sydney’s most popular RSLs after beer was turned off and 15 staff members were sacked.

A restaurant manager has won a reprieve from an arbitration court after a RSL-affiliated digger’s club turned off the beer to her restaurant prior to ordering her unlawful eviction.

Tina Plessas spent the weekend working to restore operations to her cafe/restaurant after the CEO of the RSL-affiliated Coogee Diggers Club “forcibly evicted” Ms Plessas without notice on Friday May 27.

The NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal (NCAT) on Wednesday granted interim orders for Ms Plessas to resume trading at her Cece’s restaurant after Diggers’ club CEO Peter Gallagher informed her the club was abruptly terminating her catering agreement weeks after the small business owner opened her doors in March.

Ms Plessas was forced to lay off 15 staff before taking the matter to NCAT to challenge the club’s decision.

Tina Plessas (centre) owner of Cece's restaurant at the Coogee Diggers Club with staff at her restaurant on Sunday after she was granted interim orders last week to resume trading. Picture: Supplied.

The hearing of the application for interim orders and a directions hearing in the application for substantive orders will be listed on June 27.

Ms Plessas opened her cafe/restaurant on the ground floor of Coogee Diggers after successfully pitching for the lease in 2024 and was planning to open a bakery in future weeks.

The opening of Cece’s followed a big budget renovation of the 90-year-old club’s ground floor facilities driven by Mr Gallagher.

Architecture firm Pony Design and developer Girvan put the estimated cost of their work on the project at $6 million.

Sources say that figure could stretch as high as $8 million however when additional work is factored in. The upstairs areas remains largely untouched.

The figure is well above the $3 million estimated by the club’s committee in 2022 according to former board directors.

Coogee Diggers' club management are alleged to have removed the beer taps at Tina Plessas's restaurant Cece's in May before a court demanded they be restored the taps on Friday. Pic supplied

CEO Peter Gallagher. Picture: supplied.

Opened in 1935, the club is the base of the Coogee-Randwick-Clovelly RSL sub-branch which operates separately to Coogee Diggers and which for decades has seen its membership decline.

Angry Coogee Diggers’ patrons who contacted news.com.au following Ms Plessas’ eviction said her venue, the first dining room to open on the ground floor of the club in 60 years, had immediately proved popular with the local community and families disinclined to patronise the club’s old-style upstairs bistro and sports bar.

“The venue was humming from 7am with parents grabbing coffees or a protein shake on the way to school drop-off and often coming back for brunch or lunch,” said one angry patron. “Some people stayed all day. It’s unthinkable she’s been turfed out when the place was booming.”

On Thursday Ms Plessas described her eviction by the club as “unconscionable without a right of reply”.

She claimed that after being forced to take beer off her menu on May 15 due to the taps allegedly being turned off without notice, the beer was once again flowing at her downstairs venue some 30 minutes following her eviction on May 27.

“It was a deliberate obstruction of a successful business that within weeks of opening was turning over more than $100k a month,” she told news.com.au.

Following the NCAT order, Ms Plessas returned to the Diggers on Friday hoping to resume trading only to find her property, including furniture and kitchenware, packed in a loading dock and her some coffee making equipment missing.

Coogee Diggers Club after a $6 million-plus ground floor renovation. Picture: Girvan Group.

Coogee Diggers’ CEO Mr Gallagher didn’t respond to specific questions concerning the beer outage and wouldn’t be drawn on the restaurant’s eviction.

He did confirm Ms Plessas was back in the building on Friday June 6, as per the interim NCAT orders.

“Our team welcomed Tina back this morning and plan to actively work with her amazing team,” the CEO said.

Ms Plessas disputed the claim she had been “welcomed” back and stated she has been the victim of a viscous smear campaign at the club.

Addressing a document Mr Gallagher forwarded, unprompted, to news.com.au, she confirmed one of her former restaurants in Sydney’s CBD had been shuttered as a result of the Covid downturn and for personal reasons unrelated to her business.

She placed that business into voluntary liquidation in 2024.

The restaurant owner is not the first contractor, club employee or director to be allegedly forced out of the club during the stewardship of Mr Gallagher who has been CEO since 2019.

The club’s former president Steve Despea claimed he was forced to stand down from his role in 2023 after pushing back against the planned multimillion-dollar club renovations.

Former Coogee Diggers Club president and board director Steve Despea who was stood down in 2023 after questioning expenditure on renovations by club management. Picture: supplied

Mr Despea lost his positions as club president and board director after a 19-year involvement.

He was furthermore given a life suspension by the club for questioning the CEO and dragged before the Liquor & Gaming Regulator on claims that were ultimately rejected by the authority in February 2024.

“We have been through two years of hell,” he said on Friday before calling for a forensic audit to be conducted on club spending relating to the Coogee Diggers’ downstairs renovations.

Another former board director, Mr Adrian Sutter, confirmed he too was sacked by the CEO and handed a life ban by the club after he supported the then president Mr Despea.

An Afghanistan war veteran who served in 2009 and 2010, Mr Sutter said he joined the club in 2019 after being approached by Mr Gallagher and asked to bring the work he was doing in veterans’ rehabilitation to the Coogee Diggers.

“After standing up to the board concerning Steve Despea’s rough treatment I was kicked off the board,” he said.

“There’s no one doing anything for (war) veterans in Coogee and Randwick now, despite what the club’s marketing suggests.”

The Coogee Diggers’ website states that the club supports veterans by providing facilities for meetings, commemorative events and with initiatives such as legacy membership rates at the club’s gym.

War veteran Adrian Sutter who was asked to bring his mental health program Swiss 8 to Coogee Diggers before being stood down as a board director after standing up to club management. Picture: supplied.

Coogee/Randwick/Clovelly RSL clubs, established in 1928 and 1941, operate separately from the Coogee Diggers Club, which is governed by the Registered Clubs Act.

On Friday, Mr Gallagher, who has a background working in tele-fundraising and as a Police Citizens Youth Club executive, declined to comment further on Ms Plessas’s eviction.

Members of the club’s board are yet to respond to questions emailed to them by news.com.au on Friday.

On May 15 Coogee Diggers issued a notice to members about plans to amalgamate with Paddington/Woollahra RSL Memorial and Community Club which are currently underway.

The boards of both clubs have approved the amalgamation in principal.

The matter will next go to general meetings at each club and will ultimately be in the hands of Paddington RSL’s voting members.

Such an amalgamation would see Coogee Diggers become the parent club in the union and strengthen the remit of the club’s CEO.

Originally published as Cafe owner evicted, beer turned off and 15 sacked at popular RSL club