Prawnster seafood restaurant threatened with closure

“Closing down isn’t an choice.”

So says The Prawnster proprietor Martin Brennan, who stays defiant within the face of a Friday Supreme Courtroom choice that upheld an April 30 termination of his restaurant’s berthing and mooring deed at Dockside Marina.

“We simply want to remain open, keep buying and selling, and the answer will probably be labored out,” Brennan says.

The favored 60-seat Kangaroo Level restaurant, which occupies two refurbished trawlers and a lined pontoon, has been mired in a prolonged authorized stoush regarding its industrial operations on the marina, and the next termination of its mooring deed.

The Prawnster continued to commerce whereas Brennan took his battle to the Supreme Courtroom, and now he says will probably be enterprise as traditional whereas he decides on his subsequent steps.

“Guests are pouring into the town in the course of the vacation interval,” he mentioned. “We now have Christmas capabilities booked, so we’re simply going to proceed buying and selling, so far as I’m involved. Location is a technicality. We’ll maintain the enterprise buying and selling. We’re simply going to have to slide across the river or up the river slightly bit.

“We now have our area of interest and I can’t see any good purpose to shut the enterprise, based mostly on standard demand. What that appears like might be slipping round presumably nearer to the CBD and simply looking for moorings.”

Brennan says he’s “gutted” by Friday’s choice.

The Prawnster proprietor was searching for to make clear in court docket whether or not the restaurant may function on the Crown lease at Dockside Marina. However the court docket addressed the April termination of the berthing and mooring deed first and, in upholding that call, mentioned there was no want to listen to the matter on various the Crown lease.

“The court docket mentioned, ‘sure, you’ll be able to cancel his mooring deed’,” Brennan mentioned. “We didn’t dispute that; after all he can … However then [the court] mentioned, ‘On that foundation, there’s now nothing to see right here. I’m not going to try the underlying Crown lease to find out whether or not buying and selling is permissible beneath the lease.’

“We’re simply preserving our choices open,” Brennan mentioned. “We’re simply persevering with to commerce whereas our attorneys are taking a look at it. Ought to we attraction? Ought to we pursue this motion in order that it does get clarified after which we will get our sub lease? It’s fairly complicated.”

Brennan opened The Prawnster on a refurbished trawler moored at Dockside Marina, reverse the New Farm Riverwalk, in August 2020. The idea was easy: serve contemporary seafood sourced direct from trawlers working the Queensland coast, however on a ship on the Brisbane River.

It was an thought modelled on companies similar to Prawn Star in Cairns and the Fisherman’s Co-Op on the Gold Coast, and it’s proved enormously standard with locals and vacationers, resulting in the addition of the second boat and the pontoon.

“We’ve acquired to maintain buying and selling,” Brennan mentioned. “It’s an ideal little idea – folks love us. There’s been an outpouring of help on social media.

“Final yr on Tripadvisor, we had been voted among the many high 10 per cent of eating places worldwide.”

Whether or not The Prawnster stays at Dockside or is pressured to maneuver, Brennan is assured he’ll be capable to commerce by the vacation interval.

“Both method, we are going to discover someplace,” he mentioned. “I’m form of doing two issues directly, which is, ‘What are we going to do concerning the authorized motion? Do we’ve grounds on which to attraction that?’

“On the identical time, I’m drafting a bunch of letters to the state and native authorities. We’re actually throwing ourselves at their ft … ‘certainly one in all you, or collectively, will discover someplace for us to moor’.”