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New Year, New Name as Evita Fortitude Valley Becomes ‘Rumba’

Fortitude Valley’s Evita is welcoming the new year with a new name, but promises to continue to deliver the same great experience with the anticipated launch of Rumba, a restaurant and bar with a distinct Cuban and Latin American vibe.

Read: BrewDog Fortitude Valley Opens: Craft Beer, Farm To Table Food, And More!

Potentia Solutions, the same hospitality group behind venues such as Soko Brisbane, Azteca, Miss Sunshine, and Soul Green, will replace their Argentinian restaurant and bar Evita with Rumba, which is set to open its doors for the first time by early February 2023.

At Rumba, expect large share-style platters, with meat, fish and root veggies, which can be enjoyed with housemade cheese bread and cocktails.

Photo credit: Evita Restaurant & Bar/Google Maps

Like how it’s done in many Cuban restaurants, expect lively performances from bands and DJs or listen to Latin jazz soundtrack whilst enjoying your food and drinks.

Meanwhile, Evita has been closed since 1 January 2023 for refurbishments, which is part of its preparation for the restaurant’s major overhaul at the heritage-listed venue.

Photo credit: Isabelle Lineham/Google Maps

Back in 2021, Evita opened at the former heritage building on St Pauls Terrace which was previously occupied by a bakery, which provided them with their 110-year old wood-fired oven. Some of their popular menu items included the butterfly prawns, octopus, and lamb cutlet.

Part of the rebranding is the transformation of the place. Interior work involves replacing Evita’s black and white theme with something more colourful and lively. Aside from pops of colour, there will be geometric patterns and feature elements of coche, which translates to car in Spanish.

Read: You Can Get These Brookies From This Marshall St Bakery

Rumba will be located at 365 St Paul’s Terrace, Fortitude Valley. Follow Evita’s website for updates on their rebranding.

Fortitude Valley Celebrates the Lunar New Year 2023

Photo credit: Caseman, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The Lunar New Year is just around the corner, and there’s no better place to experience the culture and food than the Valley. Be sure not to miss this free event happening on the 21st of January 2023.

Get into the festive mood and welcome the Year of the Rabbit as a traditional lion, and dragon dance liven up the Brunswick Street Mall, Chinatown Mall, Bakery Lane, and other venues beginning at 4 pm.

Then roving street performers will keep the crowd entertained with traditional dance, drumming performances, comedy, martial arts and much more.

Fortitude Valley Chinatown | Fortitude Valley Celebrates the Lunar New Year 2023 — Fortitude Valley Chinatown | Photo credit: User:Orderinchaos, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Don’t forget to drop by Chinatown Mall and browse through the market stalls and score for yourself some great finds or discover your artistic side through the Vietnamese clay figures workshop.

And of course, the festivities won’t be complete without you enjoying palate-satisfying eats and the Valley surely has got plenty to offer. So be sure to book a table ASAP!

The complete line-up of activities for the Lunar New Year 2023 is as follows:

Brunswick Street Mall

4 pm – Welcome and opening followed by lion eye dotting ceremony
4.15 pm – Roving lion dance
4.30 pm – Korean traditional dance ‘Pangoot’
5 pm – ‘The story of Nian’ theatrical performance
5.30 pm – Toko Ton Japanese drumming performance
6 pm – Filipino Australian Cultural dance
6.30 pm – Martial arts performance
7 pm – Chinese Grandma Yen comedy performance
7.30 pm – LED lion dance

Bakery Lane

6 pm – Roving ‘Story of Nian’ character performers
6.30 pm – Roving lion
7.30 pm – Roving Chinese Grandma Yen

Chinatown Mall

4-8 pm – Market stalls
4.30 pm – Vietnamese clay figures workshop
4.30 pm – Lion dance on high jong poles
5.30 pm – Firecrackers
6.30 pm – LED Dragon dance
7.30 pm – Lion dance
8 pm – Firecrackers

Roving Lions

5.45 pm – Roving lion dance in Wickham Street commencing at Cathedral Village
8 pm – Roving lion dance in Brunswick Street commencing at Chicken of Rock

Lunar New Year 2023 at Fortitude Valley happens this 21 January 2023 from 4 pm. Entry to the event is free.

Published 17-January-2023

Robot Dog Suffers Damage After a Young Woman Kicked It in Fortitude Valley

Photo credit: Facebook / Mark Trueno

A robot dog was damaged after a woman kicked it in the face at a nightclub district in Fortitude Valley. The machine was left with $2,000 worth of damage.

In a social media post last 8 January 2023, Mark Trueno shared a video showing a woman wearing heavy boots kicking his robot dog, named ‘Stampy’, right in the front sensors.

Further review of the footage revealed that the woman came back and tried to punt it again, but her friend once again called her out.

The machine, which is a Unitree Go1 model, was trotting down a Fortitude Valley street when it came across the woman and his male friend.

Trueno said he was “trying to gather GPS data, map 3d laser and stereoscopic visual data” to teach the machine obstacle avoidance when the incident happened.

Robot Dog Suffers Damage After a Young Woman Kicked It in Fortitude Valley — Photo credit: Facebook / Mark Trueno

He said that he was willing to let the incident slide but considering the damage and after “examining the onboard video, it is pretty clear this person thought it was funny.” The incident he said caused damage to Stampy’s forward-facing depth perception stereoscopic cameras, ultrasonic distance measurement sensors and led array.

“I just don’t understand what inspires someone to do that just because they’ve never seen one before. It wasn’t a case of her being scared, just trying to be funny. Considering it probably costs more than her own car, it’s just blatant disregard for other people’s property. Even her friend was in shock and apologised,” Mark Trueno writes.

The following day, Trueno said that the offender already contacted him, and it was discussed that since she has “basically turned herself in”, the $500 reward could just go “towards a charity for animal abuse shelters.”

He also appealed to those that don’t know her to be respectful as she already came forward and took ownership of the actions.

“…she sounds genuinely remorseful and honestly doesn’t deserve any more hate from people.”

Published 10-January-2023

Fortitude Valley State Secondary College Hosts FIRST LEGO League Challenge

Teachers, volunteers, and students came out in force as Fortitude Valley State Secondary College hosted its first ever FIRST LEGO League (FLL) Challenge.

Read: New Classrooms and Sports Centre for Fortitude Valley State Secondary College, QLD’s First Vertical School

The FIRST LEGO League, held in November 2022, introduces science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) to children through fun, exciting hands-on learning. The FIRST LEGO League Challenge, which is one of the three divisions by age group, is intended for students ages 9-16.

Around six teams from the college entered the FLL Challenge, which involved research, problem-solving, coding, and engineering, by building and programming a LEGO robot that navigates the missions of a Robot Game.

As part of the school’s preparation for the Lego League, a few industry experts from Clough, Accenture and Aurecon visited the school and discussed a range of topics including pumped hydropower storage, natural gas power stations, electricity distribution networks, Hydrogen production and other renewable sources.

The teams also participated in an Innovation Project to identify and solve a relevant real-world problem.

What the LEGO League Offers:

Application of science and math concepts
Hands-on problem solving
Programming experience
New real-world themed challenge each year
Sports-like tournaments with judges and awards

“We thank everyone who helped make this event memorable! It was a great day of learning for everyone, and the students had fun whilst developing problem solving skills and resilience,” Fortitude Valley State Secondary College stated.

About FIRST

For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST) is a not-for-profit organisation founded by inventor, entrepreneur Dean Kamen in 1989 to inspire young people’s interest and participation in science and technology.

Read: ‘Look Mum, No Pilot!’ Self-flying Air Taxis Being Developed In Time For 2032 Brisbane Olympics

Following the tournament season held every November to December, First is now preparing for the World Festival/Opens for the Lego League, scheduled from April to June.

Ginuary Festival Heads To Howard Smith Wharves For Its 2023 Edition

Get ready, gin lovers! The iconic Ginuary Festival is returning in January 2023, bigger than ever as it takes over the Rivershed and the Green House at Howard Smith Wharves. Here’s what to look forward to in the upcoming event.

Read: $7-Million Revamp of GPO Hotel to Introduce New Fine Dining Venue in Early 2023

Gin Tasting Hall

Expect more gin ever than before, as Ginuary Festival is back with a vengeance following two years of restricted events brought by the Covid-19 pandemic in 2021 and the floods in 2022.

The ‘gin tasting hall’ is a fully covered space which features more than 10 different degustation stations, where guests can enjoy free gin tastings. There’s also an opportunity to purchase limited-edition gins or find new potential favourites.

As Ginuary Festival returns for its fifth year, Covent Garden has once again teamed up with Long Rays, CG Gin Co and some other Australian distillers to showcase the best of the homegrown gin industry at the gin tasting hall.

‘Gin House’ area

Covent Garden will be bringing along more than a hundred of your favourite gins, for you to indulge in, whilst enjoying the best view in town.

Howard Smith Wharves’ Rivershed is a heritage wharf building with an incomparable space overlooking the city and the Story Bridge. The Green House, on the other hand, offers an intimate, inner city escape for guests with plenty of natural light and greenery.

Hottest 100 Aussie Gins

As part of Covent Garden’s annual tradition, they will be bringing to you a countdown of the Hottest 100 Aussie Gins, voted by the people, especially gin lovers.

Voting is now open at www.hottest100gins.com.au. This year’s nominations have already reached a record number of more than 650 and are still growing.

Save the Date!

What	Ginuary Festival 2023/ Hottest 100 Aussie Gins 2022
Where	Howard Smith Wharves, 5 Boundary Street Brisbane City
When	Sunday, 22 January 2023, 12:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.

Read: New And Upcoming Restaurants In Fortitude Valley

Ticket prices for the event start at $69, with a discount for early bird. For more details, visit their Events page on Facebook.

Queensland University of Technology Reports Experiencing Royal Ransomware Cyber Attack

Photo credit: Sora Shimazaki / Pexels

A cybersecurity incident occurred at the Queensland University of Technology a few days before Christmas, reporting that no student or staff data have been compromised in what appears to be a Royal ransomware attack.

QUT recently announced the incident that happened in 22 December 2022, informing the school community that its IT systems have been taken offline as a precautionary measure whilst investigations are being completed.

“At this stage, our assessment is that no student or staff data has been compromised,” the announcement said.

“We will provide an all-staff update prior to the reopening of the campus on 3 January.

“Technical staff are currently investigating and QUT has notified the relevant agencies of the situation.”

“Royal Ransomware” emerged in early 2022 and is being distributed by ransomware threat actors from previous operations and uses a sophisticated technique to penetrate networks and encrypt them with malware with the intent of demanding ransom.

Their operation has been mostly targeting corporations, reportedly demanding ransom payments between $250,000 and over $2 million.

QUT said that technical staff are already working with external experts and will continue to work through the holiday period. Restoration of the system is expected to be completed progressively but the timeline will still be subject to further investigation.

“We will communicate with you before QUT reopens in the new year and will provide more information once we have completed our investigation,” the QUT announcement added.

Last October, Marist College Ashgrove confirmed that there has been a cybersecurity breach at the school that occurred sometime in September 2022.

The cyber-attack could have potentially exposed the driver’s license information of some 3,000 former staff which included their names, superannuation, account numbers, contact information and address.

$7-Million Revamp of GPO Hotel to Introduce New Fine Dining Venue in Early 2023

Photo credit: Kgbo, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Expected to reopen in the first quarter of 2023 after its ongoing renovation, the iconic General Post Office building in Fortitude Valley, otherwise known as the GPO Hotel, will soon have a new, ‘fine dining’ venue as part of a $7-million makeover.

Hospitality group Artesian announced that the 135-year-old site will feature a new restaurant once it opens next year. Although details about the upcoming new venue are yet to be revealed, it seems that Executive Chef Richard Ousby and sommelier and former OTTO Brisbane General Manager Alan Hunter will be joining forces to deliver a whole new dining experience to the Brisbane scene.

Ousby was at one time with Michelin three-star Waterside Inn in England and was also a former Sous Chef at Quay Restaurant in Sydney and Executive Chef at Stokehouse restaurants in Melbourne and Brisbane.

Meanwhile, Hunter’s impressive resume includes a Pol Roger 2013 Sommelier of the Year award as well as being part of the OTTO Brisbane team that took home Good Food Guide’s 2019 Wine List of the Year award.

GPO Hotel was built in 1887 at a 2,000-sqm site located at 740 Ann Street in Fortitude Valley. After operating as a nightclub, it remained idle for two years during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. In 2021, it was sold to an investment arm helmed by Sydney Roosters chairman Nick Politis. Artesian Hospitality later signed a 25-year lease on the multi-building site.

The project comes on the heels of Cali Beach Club’s successful 2021 opening. The new $ 10-million precinct features poolside cabanas, two world-class restaurants, bars, sports facilities, and four large pools.

Artesian’s growing portfolio also includes Surfers Pavilion, White Rhino, Saké Sisters, and Havana RnB.

Also earmarked to be turned into a multi-venue precinct is the Surfers Paradise site, where Cali Beach is also located, and later as Artesian’s new corporate headquarters.

St Joseph’s College Unveils Final Masterplan For Major Expansion

St Joseph’s College in Gregory Terrace, Spring Hill has unveiled its final masterplan for a major expansion which will take place in the next 15 years.

Read: New Classrooms and Sports Centre for Fortitude Valley State Secondary College, QLD’s First Vertical School

The Catholic school lodged a Ministerial Infrastructure Designation to be assessed by the Queensland Government and decided by the planning minister, following submissions received during community consultation.

St Joseph’s College revised their plans in response to feedback received by the community and the Department of State Development, Infrastructure, Local Government and Planning during the consultation stage.

The amended plans cover the existing buildings located on the Main Campus, Westcourt and Waterford Place 1, and a new building – Waterford Place 2 located at 184 St Pauls Tce.

Main campus

Photo credit: https://planning.statedevelopment.qld.gov.au/

For the main campus, St Joseph’s College is planning to build new STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) classrooms and a new indoor sports facility.

Planned to be completed in 10 years, the five-storey building will feature Manual Arts Centre classrooms. It will have formal frontage to Water Street and connection to Tony White Building.

It will provide up to 69 car parking spaces in the basement and new Waters pedestrian entry.

Waterford Place

The college is also planning to complete this new building in 10 years. It will feature new additional storeys (3rd and 4th Floors).

The additional storeys will be used to house the school’s future cultural precinct and music and sporting facilities.

Waterford Place II

The new eight-storey building will be completed in two stages, which could take up to 15 years. For the initial stage, works will start in 2022 and be completed by 2024. To facilitate the development, the school has proposed to demolish the existing car parking and earthworks.

Westcourt

To be completed in 10+ years, plans include adding an additional storey (second floor) spanning 227 sqm of gross floor area for the school’s new administration and office level.

Also part of the proposal is the demolition of the existing QLD Health Building facing Quarry Street and retrofitting the car park for storage, car parking and HPE facility for students.

Read: Endeavour College of Natural Health Opens New Purpose-Built Fortitude Valley Campus

The major expansion has been proposed to meet the demand for students in the next five years, which is expected to increase by up to 50 students for every year level.

New Classrooms and Sports Centre for Fortitude Valley State Secondary College, QLD’s First Vertical School

Photo credit: Facebook / Grace Grace MP

Stage 2 of the expansion of Fortitude Valley State Secondary College has been completed, adding classrooms and a new sports centre to Queensland’s first-ever vertical school.

The completed second stage of the $143 million investment that will deliver inner Brisbane’s first secondary school in more than 50 years has recently been unveiled at a ceremony held on 18 November 2022.

This expansion has supported more than 300 secure jobs for Queenslanders.

Stage 2 cost $43 million to build and adds a state-of-the-art senior learning precinct to the school for the first cohort of Year 10 students next year.

Stage 2 of Fortitude Valley State Secondary College Officially Opened — Photo credit: Facebook / Grace Grace MP

“Fortitude Valley State Secondary College represents a $143 million Palaszczuk Government investment in the local community that has supported good jobs and provided better services in the inner city,” Education Minister and local Member for McConnel Grace Grace said.

Stage 2 features 13 classrooms for use by students in Years 10 to 12 plus a Sports Centre. The learning spaces are air-conditioned and include two industrial technology labs, two industry-standard kitchens, three senior science labs, one textiles studio, two visual arts studios and three breakout spaces for independent and group learning.

“These classrooms have been built above an enclosed sports facility with two multi-purpose courts,” Minister Grace adds.

Vertical schools are a recent phenomenon in Australian state education. High land prices and a scarcity of suitable sites make vertical schools an economic alternative to our longstanding cultural preference for low-rise schools.
New vertical schools, ranging in height from four to seventeen storeys, are now starting to be commissioned across all Australian mainland states. Peter Goss from the Grattan Institute wrote that Australia can anticipate an increase of around 650,000 students in the decade to 2026. This number would require the construction of seven new twenty-five-student classrooms every day for ten years.
“Vertical Schools on the Rise in Australian Cities” by Clare Newton

“Around 450 students in Years 7 to 9 are currently receiving a world-class education at Fortitude Valley State Secondary College, and the school will continue to add a year level every year until the first Year 12 cohort starts in 2025.

“Fortitude Valley State Secondary College is one of 21 new schools the Palaszczuk Government has opened since 2015, and we’ll open another four next year.”

The State Government continues to invest in building, upgrading and expanding schools under its 2022-23 budget with almost $2 billion allocated to education infrastructure investment supporting almost 4,200 jobs for Queenslanders.

BrewDog Fortitude Valley Opens: Craft Beer, Farm To Table Food, And More!

BrewDog Fortitude Valley has just opened at the Tranberg House, a beautiful heritage listed building along Brunswick Street.

Read: You Can Get These Brookies From This Marshall St Bakery

The venue is the second location in Brisbane for the Scottish-born brand, which first opened in Murarrie in 2019. Brewdog Fortitude Valley currently offers 20 taps across three levels of craft beer heaven, shuffleboards, pinball and farm-to-table food.

Around 50 percent of their menu covers gluten-free, vegan, and vegetarian options, so guests can choose from their selection of burgers, wings, pizzas, and big bowl salads minus the guilt.

As for the drinks, guests can guarantee that all the beers they offer are 100 percent carbon negative, which means it’s good for the planet. Aside from craft beer they are best known for, they also have a range of spirits and non-alcoholic options.

The ground level bar can have around 130 people and includes a dedicated patio area outside. On the top level, there’s access to the small outdoor balcony, which is a mix of seating, high tables, and booths plus their epic shuffleboards.

One of the highlights of this place is the beer hall, an events place that can accommodate around 130 people seated. It features exposed ceilings, feature walls, comfy lounges, and a huge yellow bar.

Photo credit: BrewDog Fortitude Valley/Google Maps

BrewDog Fortitude Valley will employ around 35 new staff. The brand aims to set the bar higher for hospitality workers everywhere and their team will benefit from this initiative, which involves sharing half of their profits with their crew.

“By sharing 50% of profits with our crew, we’re setting the bar higher for hospitality workers everywhere, and democratising the benefits of working here. When BrewDog succeeds, all of our people succeed with it,” the brand stated in its website.

Read: Non-traditional Italian Dining Experience Coming to Fortitude Valley

The newly opened venue in Brisbane is part of the brand’s expansion in Australia, with plans to open two more locations –one in Melbourne and another one in Sydney.