It’s now known as The Lookout Bar Bowls & Bites, and it comes alive every night with nightclub lights, charming young people and pumping tunes.
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Heaton’s nightclub and music venue company, Nightowl Entertainment, has nine venues and his darts bar, Flight Club, is about to open in Melbourne and Sydney with vibrant music and lights.
It also owns the Fremantle nightclub Metropolis and the underground Edison Bar and Amplifier nightclub in Perth City.
All of this has nothing to do with the Print Hall brand.
“We’re not afraid to take on a challenge. You have to keep finding new things to keep it going, but culture matters. If the floor and bar staff are having a good time, the patrons are having a good time,” Heaton said.
“You have to work on people first. That’s the most important thing. Culture is like the operating software of your business.”
Heaton isn’t intimidated by Print Hall, although it started out as a high-end restaurant and bar complex with one of the best interiors in Western Australia’s hospitality industry and one of the most spectacular wine lists in the country. He hopes to appeal to a city’s corporate crowd while also making them younger and more dynamic.
“We’re always looking for hooks,” he said.
“In Perth, people’s tastes and expectations have improved a lot, and to stay in the middle of the crowd, you have to perform well. So, when we saw Print Hall, we thought, ‘We can do it, but We need the right people’.”
Heaton got off to a good start, hiring food and beverage executive Cristiano Fraulini, a Swiss-trained hospitality professional who previously worked with the Prendiville family in Western Australia.
Sample the updated menu at Stampa Restaurant in Print Hall.
“At Print Hall, we’ve taken all the experience of traveling the world and brought back some really cool ideas,” Heaton said.
“Perth is a global city, so we don’t follow local trends, which is what people expect.”
So what would you eat at Stampa, Print Hall’s “destination restaurant”?
Well it’s Italian and no surprise there’s some pasta here – sautéed salami ravioli with butter, sage and bacon and sedani (a pasta shaped like macaroni) with anchovies, peppers, sourdough Breadcrumbs and fresh tomatoes – and entrees, cheeks of slow-cooked beef polenta; venison in Nebbiolo sauce and Rottnest swordfish cooked the Sicilian way.
Naturally, tiramisu is indispensable. The wine list is a shadow of what it used to be, but not bad from what we saw.
With Heaton not straying too far from his nightclub roots, Bob’s Bar, the rooftop drinking and partying spot, is getting younger.
According to Heaton, DJs, loud music and high-pressure bar service will bring young people back to Print Hall.
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