Member Article

Newcastle's Assembly Rooms in £1 million revamp which could create 50 jobs

Newcastle’s iconic Assembly Rooms function venue will be home to a new restaurant and VIP club following a £1 million investment from its owner.

Antony Michaelides’ new venture, Bonbar, will see the 237 year-old Grade II listed building Lower Ballroom, Sovereign Suite and cobbled exterior entrance courtyard transformed into a restaurant, entertainment lounge, VIP club and alfresco dining area offering unrestricted day-to-night admission to the public.

The move is expected to create up to 50 jobs as Antony hopes to make the Assembly Rooms a flagship destination in Newcastle.

Set to open in mid-March next year, work on Bonbar will begin shortly and will involve enhancing the Assembly Rooms’ ground floor, including the unveiling of original period features hidden from public view for decades.

When completed, Bonbar will have a capacity of 700 and offer a mix of food and entertainment.

Mr Michaelides, 49, said the move away from the Assembly Rooms being just an elegant conference and banqueting location had been prompted by changing public tastes and the need for a more sophisticated and aspirational venue in Newcastle catering to the 25 year old plus age group.

While the conference and banqueting facilities will remain, Mr Michaelides added that the time had come to recreate the magic of the Assembly Rooms’ early days, albeit brought up to date and sympathetically refurbished.

He said: “As the Assembly Rooms heads towards its 240th birthday, what better way to celebrate this historic and beautiful venue than to look to its past by commemorating both its history and its future.

“When the Assembly Rooms opened it was a community space where the public of Newcastle could come and read the newspapers of the day, play cards, relax in a reading room, drink coffee, gossip and dine and dance.

“That had all been lost and now we want to return to those heady days in the 18th and early 19th centuries where the Assembly Rooms was this wonderful space open to all and the place to go and be seen.

“My dream is to once again turn the Assembly Rooms into a flagship leisure destination for Newcastle and beyond.”

The Assembly Rooms was a crumbling, derelict shadow of its former self ear-marked for demolition when the Michaelides family bought it in 1974. Over the years it has been home to a members’ only casino as well as the banqueting and conference facilities.

Bonbar will operate seven days a week from mid-morning until 4am on selected nights and offer lunch and afternoon teas as well as evening dining with a late lounge and musical entertainment.

Running alongside will be the 467 club inspired by a fancy dress ball and supper organised in 1823 by 47 gentlemen bachelors of Newcastle for 467 ladies and men “attired in all the splendour, brilliancy and variety that taste could devise or money purchase,” that was described at the time as the most splendid entertainment ever seen in the city.

The refit will involve removing the false ceiling in the Lower Ballroom to reveal the original wrought iron trellis work as well as the ornate cornicing and columns.

A new wood and zinc faced bar area will be installed as well as a state-of-the-art multi-media system.

Mr Michaelides – who is working with Newcastle-based marketing consultants DDCA on the rebranding - said the intention was to create a cool and contemporary space that brought the Assembly Rooms into the 21st century while paying homage to its past.

“We are delivering something on a scale that hasn’t been seen in Newcastle for some time and something the city desperately needs. Hopefully this will be a venue that will be strong enough to keep people in the town day and night.

“We are retaining the original features, and indeed reinstating many to public view.

“This is a new chapter in the Assembly Rooms’ long history and it’s a new chapter in my life. I am getting the chance to create something unique in Newcastle and doing it right, which as a family we have always prided ourselves on.

“Without my family the Assembly Rooms wouldn’t be here now. But we are only the key holders for the future; as a family we can’t take the Assembly Rooms with us.

“I have long thought it was a crime not to be using this building for the intention for which it was built, which is to get people socialising in person.

“Bonbar will breathe new life into what is a uniquely important venue.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Tom Keighley .