Restaurant picks up awards but no sign
The Spirit House restaurant on the Sunshine Coast has picked up numerous awards including a spot in the Australian Financial Review Top 500 Australian Restaurant awards.
But it can’t convince Queensland’s Main Roads department and the Sunshine Coast Council to put up a sign telling people how to get there.
Owner Helen Brierty has been trying for five years to get a sign at the roundabout at the intersection of Yandina-Coolum Rd, Fleming St, Pioneer Rd and Coulson Rd, so that motorists could take Coulson Rd to the restaurant 1km away on Ninderry Rd, in Yandina.
The council has always told her it would set a precedent for the 2000 restaurants on the Coast.
The restaurant and cooking school is a key tourist destination. And there are businesses that do have signs.
The problem, she says, is that people are always getting lost trying to find their way there. It happens on a daily basis.
“It’s all very well but we are a tourist restaurant, and the tourists can’t find us and they get so angry,” Ms Brierty told the Sunshine Coast Daily.
“They come to the Coast on holidays, book into Noosa and they come here at night and can’t find us.”
“They wind around Yandina and get lost because there’s nothing open at night and they get really angry and go back to Noosa and ring and abuse us.
“The fellow at the garage said we should give him a dollar for every time he has to give directions. We give him a free meal every now and then.”
What keeps some of the customers from out of town coming in is the smart phone and GPS.
“The Internet’s saved us,’’ she says.
The Spirit House is not the only one with this problem.
For the last three years, the Northern Shore Traders Association has been trying to get a sign showing motorists how to get to commercial and accommodation precincts at Pacific Paradise and Marcoola.
It hasn’t happened yet. But there’s a Sunshine Motorway signs telling motorists which exit to use for Clive Palmer’s Coolum Resort, which has been closed for a year.
by Leon Gettler, May 31st 2016
