The Whisky Bar and Restaurant

I note there has only been one other review of this restaurant so far. It is pretty apparent that that review has been done by the owner or manager. It's simply an ad for the place and is written as an advertisement using the language of advertising. It should never have been published because it is simply not the objective opinion of a TA user. It is blatantly and obviously an advertisement masquerading as a review. The frustrating thing is that this is the sort of place Townsville needs and I would just love it to succeed. If you are looking for an after dinner drink in Townsville, you are largely stuck with pubs and nightclubs. This is what's needed, a quiet, sophisticated, comfortable option. But if they persist with the current model, it is likely to fail. This could be a sophisticated night spot, but it's not there yet. Not by a long shot. My first visit was several months ago. Friday night, about 9 in the evening, live music...you'd expect a bit of a crowd. Instead there was a young fellow playing a tinny electric piano and apart from us the only customers in the place was a table full of the the piano player's family and friends, including several small children. Which was nice for him I suppose. The decor is nice, the furniture comfortable and the lady working behind the bar was really very lovely. Just the sort of person you want working for you in the hospitality industry. My friend, a professional musician, was able to tell me in very technical terms, why the piano player, who was very talented, sound like he was on AM radio. The details escape me but this musician's considerable talent was let down by the acoustics. But we were there to try a whisky, for after all that's what the place is marketed as. I opened the whisky menu and was dumbstruck at the outrageous prices. I did find a Laphraiog for $12 per nip which was one of the cheaper tipples available. This is a very good whisky, but this does mean they are retailing this whisky for the equivalent of $600 a bottle. That's a bottle you can buy retail for around $80 here in Townsville, so I presume they pay substantially less purchasing wholesale. Some of the other whiskies were up around the $30 mark for a nip, which equates to $1,500 per bottle. I realise there are large overheads for this particular venue and I realise that good whisky is not cheap. But these sorts of mark ups are pretty unconscionable. And probably explains why the place was empty.So with an out of town whisky loving friend in tow I tried the place again last night. Or at least I tried to try it. There was apparently some sort of concert happening in the ground floor concert hall and because of that, the whisky bar upstairs was closed. The security guys made it clear to us that it was closed because the concert was on. I just didn't understand it, and still don't. They are attracting few enough customers already, and on a Saturday evening they close their doors because there is a concert being held in an entirely different part of the building. I'm not sure if they expected customers to search their web site to check they were open or not, but it seemed reasonable to us to assume the place would be open on a Saturday. Just to be fair, I just checked the web site and there is no mention that I could find of the place being closed for last night's concert. And the annoying thing is that this place is not walking distance to any of the entertainment precincts in Townsville. You have to get in a car to drive there, so it wasn't as if we could wander back to where we'd come from. The security fellow did offer us a 2 for 1 deal if we came back next week, but to be honest, that's unlikely. I will probably try this place again some time in the future, and I really do hope that it's still in business then and still serving a great selection of whiskies. But if you are thinking of trying it, take plenty of money. And check they're open first.

"Polenta and vegetable stack" was polenta and tomatoes with oily pesto and sun dried tomatoes. No actual vegetables on the plate. I may as well have tipped a bottle of olive oil down my throat. Friendly staff but disgusting food. Thank god I didn't order an entree

I used the Street Food App on my iPhone to discover some great food trucks (streetfoodapp.com) and found this charming little truck located on the South East side of the Loblaws parking lot.

I decided to give this food truck a try at West Fest.

I stopped by this small food truck located just outside of Art-Is-In Bakery and the Orange Monkey pool hall.