Damian Griffiths to turn former retail strip into hospitality hub

He already has created one of Brisbane’s most interesting mini hospitality precincts around the intersection of Alfred and Constance streets in Fortitude Valley (Limes, A&C, Alfredo’s, Kwan Brothers).

Now entrepreneur Damian Griffiths is doing it all again on a larger scale.

Restaurant entrepreneur Damian Griffiths at Kwan Brothers in Brisbane. Picture: Richard Waugh Source: News Corp Australia

On a stretch of Wickham Street between the city and Chinatown, Griffiths has secured a collection of properties in a forgotten retail strip that he hopes will become the nucleus of their own hospitality hub.

First cab off the rank is the reinvention of a three-level heritage site as an “urban winery” with an eatery “similar to Kitchen by Mike in Sydney”, street-level restaurant and upstairs nightclub bar.

The Speedwell will take its name from the bicycles once manufactured on site. Griffiths has commissioned Barcelona interior design firm Lazaro Rosa-Violan to work on the project in its entirety. For there is plenty more.

Four doors down, in a site notoriously connected with Queensland’s Fitzgerald inquiry, Griffiths has leased a basement once known as Bubbles Bath-House and the street-level premises above. Both will be used for food and wine, with the restaurant working similar territory to Griffiths’s Kwan Brothers with a broadly Asian theme.

A third space, a loading bay on the cul-de-sac Little Street, will complete the precinct. Griffiths hopes to have the basement-level winery with its exposure to Little Street open by Christmas.

Source : The Australian    Jonathon Lethlen  February 10th 2015