Hatches IX - Jan 2012

Hello and Happy New Year ! It's been a while since the last update here; as always lots has been going on up and down and just off King Street - below is just a summary of a few of the changes that have occurred in the last 6 months; hopefully it won't be 6 months to the next update !

Well it's January 2012 and now we're starting to understand why it's going to take until the end of this year to complete the Newtown Station upgrade. The progress is summarised in the notice below, see the detailed post for more information and photos.

Newtown Station Progress

Also still ongoing is the long running Energy Australia works; although Ausgrid, as they are now known have promised to repair the King St footpaths once all the shops connect to the beautiful black boxes on the footpaths, there's no news yet whether the road destruction on Wilson St, Angel St etc will be repaired. There are contact details below from their website:

If you have any questions, please contact our project team on the 24/7 project information line 1800 643 608 or email info-kingstreet@ausgrid.com.au.

Wilson St EnergyAustralia Repairs

New Openings

• Quite a few small bars popping up in King Street finally, including Bench, Jester Seeds (Newtown vibe and Darlinghurst prices), and Kuki Tanuki in Erskineville, finally emerging from interminable renovations.
• Sydney's Mexican food trend has spread to Newtown, with the opening of Beach Bistro next to the Hub, replacing the short lived (and Mayor-loved) Soprano's pizzeria; and the slow but promised opening of Mad Mex 
• A swanky looking Basque inspired Kingfish Bistro as SoKi continues its fashionable evolution
• A Korean barbecue restaurant has bravely opened above Tamana's North Indian diner; graveyard for Tamana's Upstairs, Posh Spice and most recently Top Level Pizza

Going ...

Old Advertising on King St

• The Laundromat near King Street Cyclery burnt down spectacularly - revealing some great old advertising on the wall of the bike shop. Will be ever be nostalgic about today's advertising ? Hard to imagine !
• Sadly Wilson St Gallery closed without much warning - apparently moved to Danks St, to be replaced (inexplicably) by a ballet shop Repertoire - that I give 6 months.
• King St Cyclery itself has closed for renovations, moving to their repair centre near Marrickville Metro. Cheeky Monkey are still going strong
• Taste Chicken surprisingly disappeared, not sure if anyone knows the story behind that.
• The much loved Freaky Tiki in the Newtown Hotel closed - will it reappear after the renovations ?

Development Applications

• A chain milk bar (above) to replace the suddenly closed African restaurant Kilimanjaro. I hope the mural is protected. 
• Yet another gelato shop to replace the camera shop next door to African feeling. I guess they've seen how popular Gelatomassi is
• The owners of the post office have applied to add some apartments out the back - across the road from the much loved Varga Bar.

Reviews

• There's a whole industry of food bloggers out there now, hard to keep track of them all ! A special mention though to Detective Chow who has quite an original take on the reviews; and has visited two Newtown locations recently.
• New Vietnamese joint Rice Paper got a write up in the SMH Jan 21; coincidentally the same day the Mayor dined there. Recommended !
  

Random 

• Whispers of The Hub coming back to life - what will this be ?
• Some very cool guerrilla knitting outside the Neighbourhood centre
  

You can see all the links that I have shared on Twitter via my bit.ly public timeline.