Major milestone for Toowoomba restaurant

MARK and Meredith Rawlings have seen their fair share of weddings, milestone birthdays and anniversaries in their long-standing city restaurant.

MARK and Meredith Rawlings have seen their fair share of weddings, milestone birthdays and anniversaries in their long-standing city restaurant.

Now, the couple has celebrated their own birthday, the 21st for Encores Restaurant. The restaurant was opened on June 25, 1997, the same time the Empire Theatre was reopened.

"It has gone really quickly. It is hard to believe it has been 21 years - to be honest," Mr Rawlings said.

"We started where the box office is now, that was the original site, so it only sat about 40 people.

"A lot of people still remember that now."

CELEBRATING: Encores Restaurant owners Mark and Meredith Rawlings (front) with their staff (from left) Alexander Omar Ibrahim, Clayton Costigan, Milo Rosetti, Oliver Brown, Samuel Riis and Stuart Parker. Picture: Bev Lacey

The restaurant was moved to its current purpose-built site about 12 years ago as part of an Empire Theatres redevelopment.

"It was a natural progression really to move into it and it's been really good," Mr Rawlings said.

Mr Rawlings said the restaurant's cuisine had always been similar but it had moved with trends slightly.

"We opened in 1997 doing the style of cuisine we are doing now, but I guess you could say we have updated and freshened it up as we needed to and tried to move with the trends without going too far out of the boundaries," he said.

Encores restaurant, at the Empire, celebrate 21 years. June 2018. Picture: Bev Lacey

"Our market has been very loyal to us and we have a lot of good, regular customers so we stick with what works for us."

Mrs Rawlings said there was even still customers who were there on opening night - including one who just celebrated their 95th birthday at the restaurant. She added their success was due to the loyalty of the staff and customers.

"21 years in the restaurant industry is a long time, as we would know in Toowoomba, there is a lot of comings and goings," Mr Rawlings said.

"I guess our key is, I have always been about trying to be consistent about what we have done and how we do it so the customer knows every time, this is how we do it."

Originally published as Major milestone for Toowoomba restaurant