The little Italian club saying arrivederci to Newstead after 40 years

Nestled between two apartment buildings in Newstead lies a quaint Italian club with a storied history – and a future in the suburbs.

ANFE Italian Club has been at 10 Wyandra Street for 40 years, beginning as a port of call for migrants in the 1960s, offering accommodation and jobs before it became more of a social hub in the ’70s.

ANFE Italian Club at Newstead.Credit: Jocelyn Garcia

Today, the club continues to host trivia nights, card games, football finals and Taranta dance classes. A good plate of pasta can be found at the restaurant and support is offered to the new wave of migrants – young people on student visas looking for somewhere that reminds them of home.

“There’s a man who is 101 years old, and he comes in every Sunday to play cards with people from his region,” said club president Maria Maruca.

Residential developments have transformed Newstead, and the club was to have been incorporated into another high-rise project approved for the street. However, the Le Bain development appears set to rise without the club and its lease will not be renewed.

ANFE Italian Club was to be incorporated into a development in Newstead (left), but will instead create a new home (centre) in an old gym at Stafford (right).

Rising costs and a decline in membership due to the lack of parking and disability access has prompted the club to lodge its own development application for a building used most recently as a gym. There, opposite the Bunnings at Stafford, the club wants to have more room to entertain more people.

Maruca said Newstead had evolved over the years and it was time for the club to evolve too.

“It was an industrial area when we first went there but obviously with the boom of the apartment, it became increasingly difficult for us to find parking ... and most of our members have been here for 40 years,” she said.

Maruca, who grew up in New Farm, said there had also been a cultural change.

“New Farm and the Fortitude Valley area was the little Italy of the ’60s and ’70s. It was full of Italian shops and delicatessens selling biscuits, ham, pasta and homewares,” she said.

“The Italians, when they migrated to Australia, virtually grasped any sort of accommodation they could but as they integrated and made money, their aim was to own their own beautiful big brick home.

“That’s why in the early 80s, the Italians branched out and began buying blocks of land in Aspley, Bridgeman Downs and West Chermside and into southside areas like Carina and Carindale.

“That’s when the city lost a lot of Italian people and that little village began changing.”

Maruca would go to the Italian club as a teenager.

The ANFE (Association of Migrant Families) Italian Club was formed in 1962 and has been at Newstead for 40 years.Credit: ANFE Italian Club

“I remember going every Sunday to Newstead and there were about 50 or 60 teens hanging outside with our FIATs and Alfas,” she said.

“We’d all be comparing models while our parents were inside socialising.”

By the ’80s, parking had become more of a challenge, and the club is now eyeing off more car parks in a convenient location.

“People need places like the Italian club. We will always be there to help and offer a place to socialise. That won’t change,” she said.

The club hopes to welcome visitors at a new location by mid-2024.