New Brisbane

It seems customary that these reviews start with the words “Oh yes” so here I go. Oh yes The Chalk Hotel in Woolloongabba, the exciting new venue that seemingly appeared out of nowhere to make its mark on the Brisbane scene late last year. So there I found myself on Stanley Street after taking a wrong turn on return from spending a wild and eventful day in Ipswich [work purposes only I swear]. So why not go in and check out Chalk Hotel, it had seriously impressed me with its lavish layout and the amount of beautiful people it had managed to cram through its doors in the month after opening. But alas I soon had found it very hard to drag myself from my favourite Valley hangouts to make the trip all the way over to Woolloongabba. So is Chalk still going strong six months after opening? Well if Friday night is any indication the answer is no. However, if you’ve never been I’d recommend you give Chalk a chance at least once.

Chalk Hotel
735 Stanley Street, Woolloongabba.
Phone: 07 3896 6565
Fax: 07 3896 6566

Although, hardly being eye catching from the outside, once you enter the club you will immediately be impressed with the décor. Downstairs is Sticks Bar and Restaurant which features an impressively laid out bar to your right and restaurant tables too your left. Downstairs has a classier feel than upstairs and would be a great atmosphere to surround yourself in if it weren’t for all the TV screens which give it a commercial feel. I can understand why they’d want TV screens too make money on special sporting events such as Bledisloe, Origin and the World Cup but honestly if patrons want to watch TV then why don’t they stay at home. In my opinion going out is for socialising, meeting cool new people, having a few drinks and relaxing and enjoying good company. If you want to sit down and watch sport or music videos, unless it’s an important event like origin then just stay at home.

Anyway before I delve of onto a tangent lets get back to reviewing Chalk Hotel, television screens aside. Downstairs is simply very impressive and well laid out but what about upstairs? You walk upstairs and enter Stumps Steak and Pizza Bar, which is like going from Jade Buddha to Adrenaline Sports Bar. This is where you find the first fault with Chalk. It’s almost like they’ve tried to cater for as many different crowds as possible, rather than letting the venue it’s self attract the crowds to it’s uniqueness. The venue it’s self is stunning, hard to compare it with anything, maybe calling it the Regatta of the Southside would draw the closest description but it’s much nicer inside that the Regatta. Maybe it likens most to Transport Bar in Melbourne but if you haven’t been to Transport or Melbourne [god forbid] then you wouldn’t know what I’m talking about. Although the venue is stunning I find it hard to believe that someone can invest so much into a venue yet try and cut costs on things such as the sound system, the acoustics, the floors and various other things that make the venue a bit tacky. All that been said it’s still a state of the art venue and you will still be impressed, especially on entering Platform three which has an impressive inside & outside lounge area. On the other side is Dust which offers a pretty tradition style bar which mainly sells beer and spirits.

On Friday Night there was probably about 250 people there which isn’t much for a venue of this magnitude which could easily hold 1000. Most of those were in Dust or at Stumps Steak and Pizza bar. The crowd seemed to be a very City-type crowd with the bartenders mostly serving beer or spirits with the occasional cocktail or glass of Champagne. It’s not as strict dress code wise and some patrons looked like they were wearing stripe dress shirts that hadn’t left the closet since George Michael left WHAM. I wasn’t overly impressed with their wine list nor their cocktails thus was more than willing to accept my friends invitation to join them in the Valley. I thought that they seemed over staffed which was ironic because the bar staff were overly slow serving people and wasted a lot of time standing around. The staff didn’t seem that motivated unlike the glassies at the Fringe Bar who literally pick up your glasses 0.125 of a second after you finish your drink. The cool DJ’s downstairs blending house music seems to be gone, however I did think the drummer playing along with the DJ was a very cool touch.

So is Chalk Hotel worth a look? Definitely if you’ve never been and if you have been then it might be worth another try on a Saturday Night but it might be hard to get me out of that all too comfortable seat at the Sunbar. However, it’s great that the owners have put the time and money into constructing a first class venue that puts most venues in Australia to shame. Just a pity that the drinks, service and music don’t match that standard, well at least on Fridays.