Once a staple on Bayswater Road of Kings Cross, many hearts were broken when Hugos Lounge decided to close in August 2015 due to the lockout laws – but the venue is set to be resurrected next year under new management.
Eric Jury is the man behind Double Bay establishment Casablanca – but with the venue shutting its doors due to residential development, he has now puchased the Hugos Lounge site to inject life back into the Kings Cross favourite. The venue will open as a pop-up bar in February, and if all goes to plan and business is booming, it will remain a permanent fixture come August. Surprisingly enough, Jury is actually a supporter of the lockout laws.
“I think the lockout laws has actually done good job of clearing out some of the trash in the area and I think it actually has a much nicer atmosphere compared to what it used to be like,” he says. “Hopefully this could be the beginning of a new era for this venue and that street in particular. I’m hoping that we can bring the people back and make the area as popular as it once was.”
Jury will consult with former Hugos Lounge owner Dave Evans about the venue, while he also plans to install a a 730 square-metre bar, complete with soundproofing. “That street has been fairly depressed since Hugos closed so if the right operator can come in and work around the decibel reading restrictions then great. We are still hoping for changes to the lockout laws but at this point there hasn’t been an indication of when that might happen,” Kings Cross Liquor Accord’s Doug Grand said.
There’s no doubt that reopening a venue in the post-lockout era of Kings Cross is a risky move – we’ll have to see if it flourishes and injects some much-needed life back into the area.
