Will The Palace Pump Once More?

By Elizabeth Major on May 29, 2014 in Other

Standing at the north end of Coogee Beach is a monument comparable to the Colosseum in both shape and historical merit, at least to local Coogee socialites. If anyone remembers standing in a line down the heritage listed escalator that rarely seemed to work or had a beer on a Sunday overlooking the beach then they probably know that in its day, the Palace was the place to be on any night of the week, not just a Saturday.

For the many of us who were lucky enough to work there, we have seen it all: fights, sex and even Vanilla Ice. The Palace was once the destination venue of the Eastern Suburbs and if we weren’t working 14-hour shifts back to back throughout the weekend and having a cheeky flirt with one another, we were being locked inside, skolling beers and eating cold meat pies until the manager on duty finished counting the cash and kicked us all out.

The Palace, or Pa-lah-chay as it was sometimes called (when we pretended we were too fancy to have ever spewed in its toilets), was once the $200 ticket for New Year’s Eve when Sneaky Sound System played and the bartenders all stood up on the bar and poured shots down each other’s throats. The line once went out the door while bikini-clad girls sipped Tiger Lily cocktails in hot tubs on the balcony of the Aquarium Bar. I remember seeing the building swarming with moths, drunk students and enough patrons that I had to line up for the bathroom, only to find that I was waiting for a pair of girls who were enjoying each other’s company a little bit too much in the toilet stalls.

Sydney, however, is a city of fickle custom. Trends change along with laws and once they banned smoking in clubs there was nothing left to mask the stale stench of sweaty feet that exuded from the Mid Palace carpet. The minor improvements to the nightclub section were not enough to rekindle the Wednesday night romance of cheap schooners for uni students, and eventually even the favourite Sunday sessions upstairs in the Aquarium Bar became a ghost-like memory of a time gone by.

A change of management saw the escalators replaced by stairs and even Timmy – the big, red, evil fish that literally bit the hand that fed it – eventually went belly up. The top levels were closed, the locals went elsewhere and the heritage dome ceiling was left to stare at the night sky in vacant longing, hoping to be filled with laughter and drunken behaviour once again.

Fortunately the world of hospitality is full of surprises and last week the Beach Palace Hotel was purchased by Merivale’s Justin Hemmes. It is with high expectations that the Eastern Suburbs now looks to the unveiling of a venue that will be reborn with a new status high enough to match the towering dome. Whether it will pulsate once again with the same psychotic energy of days past and re-emerge as a new Sydney favourite is yet to be seen, but if there is one thing Merivale will ensure, it is that the floor will smell a whole lot nicer than it did before.