The Lowdown on Some of Your Favourite Venues…
This is the week that has seen COVID restrictions lift with restaurants, pubs and clubs finally opening their doors. Punters have never been so happy to have a cold beer on tap, from a location that’s not their home!
The iconic pubs of Byron are open once again with the Beach Hotel opening its doors last week with a daily program of singer-songwriters on offer. The Hotel Great Northern opened last Thursday, but they aren’t about to include entertainment just yet.
Venue Manager Hannah Mooney is taking it a day at a time.
‘It’s very limited and restrictive as to what you can do. Shopping centres are packed, but with venues its very prescriptive as to what we can do. Hopefully it’s only a few weeks before we get back to normalcy.’
The Hotel Great Northern currently has limited capacity in the front bar and the restaurant. They may decide to open the Backroom if the need arises.
The Railway Hotel won’t be opening this week. Although being an alfresco styled venue makes it the perfect candidate for an open-air beer with a solo musician on stage, State Rail have taken advantage of this time to upgrade the car park so the Rails can’t currently trade.
They envisage they will be able to open in July.
The Bangalow Hotel will remain closed until next week.
Over in Mullumbimby, the Ex-Services have opened their doors, from Monday to Sunday with the restaurant Societa serving Wednesday to Saturday, evenings only. The club is open for bar and gaming and the bistro is limited to evenings. No lunches are available as of yet.
Mandy from the club said, of the return to trade so far, ‘it’s been quite steady – but as far as putting entertainment on, we have to wait for numbers to go up. With 85 across the club it’s just not feasible. Hopefully they’ll be easing these regulations in clubs soon.’
The Courthouse Hotel is still not open, but have plans to open their doors for bar service and restaurant on Thursday. There will be a limit to the number of patrons on the premises, and all will need to adhere to government social distancing/ COVID safe rules and regulations.
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