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Club with a view? Soho House team eyes Bondi

Scott Bolles
Scott Bolles

A Soho House-style private club is planned for the recently opened Pacific development overlooking Bondi Beach.
A Soho House-style private club is planned for the recently opened Pacific development overlooking Bondi Beach.Supplied

A Soho House-style private club is poised to open at Bondi Beach with branches to follow in Melbourne and Brisbane. The cocktail glasses will be clinking on the eastern seaboard, with confirmation a deal is in the works for the new club, which would slide into the recently opened Pacific development overlooking Bondi Beach. Plans for the club include a restaurant, bar, cinema room and creative work spaces for its members, licensing being the final hurdle to the deal being signed off.

A source close to the project told Good Food CBD and Surry Hills branches of the club are also on the drawing board before a push interstate. US entrepreneur David Fischer, involved in the joint venture launching Soho House into India, is backing and negotiating the Australian play, but sources say he'll create his own club outside the Soho brand for our market.

Private clubs have had a chequered history trying to get a foothold in the Australian market. Sceptics say there isn't the same appetite for them in our less congested cities, the Pacific Club failing to launch a decade ago and administrators appointed in April at The Corner Office, a Brisbane club modelled on offshore clubs. Indeed, representatives of Soho House have toured Sydney sites in the past but are believed to have cooled on the Australian market. The Bondi camp argues Australians' mindset on the new-age private club model is changing, and a strong emphasis on providing creative workspaces for members is key.

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Scott BollesScott Bolles writes the weekly Short Black column in Good Food.

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