Chopsticks

Nick and Nora have always held that Australia is multicultural through its stomach.

It doesn't need government programs or politically correct mandarins to tell us to accept and absorb the best of other cultures. Our taste buds are quite capable of doing that for us.

For an aspiring world class holiday destination like the Gold Coast, it is only fitting that famous restaurants also be on the itinerary. In Surfers Paradise there was a choice of two, Margot Kelly's Hibiscus Room and the Cafe Cathay a few hundred metres to the north.

Both serviced different parts of the local and holiday market, both succumbed to the developer's bulldozer in the late 1970s-early 1980s and our local history is the poorer for it.

The above advertisement is from the 1954 Courier-Mail Annual. Apologies for the water damage at the top right, we presume it is meant to read 3. Point Plan For The Perfect Vacation.

The restaurant was located between what is now Surfers Paradise Boulevard and Orchid Avenue, just one block back from the beach at Surfers Paradise.

According to notes on this photograph (sourced from the Gold Coast local studies library) the building to the left of the Cafe Cathay housed the Surfers Paradise cinema as well as an amusement parlor.

And that would have been about here on Google maps (click on the blue marker).


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In searching for information on the Cafe Cathay we came across this fabulous home movie taken in Surfers Paradise around 1960. It is archived by the National Library of Australia under its Australian Screen project.

The clip is silent but features the Cafe Cathay, the Beachcomber resort (which still exists in a 1970s redeveloped form) as well as other long-forgotten land marks. Don't forget to pay attention to the fabulous street signage.

Magic.