We started off 2024 by reporting on the closure of three beloved Adelaide Hills venues – Brid, Lost in a Forrest and The Summertown Aristologist. As the year has progressed, we’ve covered countless breweries going into voluntary administration. And just last week we shared that Cafe Komodo was closing after 19 years.
Long story short? The Adelaide hospitality scene has faced an incredibly rough first half of 2024.
Over the last three days, the industry has suffered two more blows as My Lover Cindi and Gang Gang in Parkside announced their closures.
Taking to Instagram on Sunday, the My Lover Cindi team said, “All good things must come to an end.”
“We are filled with mixed emotions as we let you know that My Lover Cindi is closing its doors; heartbreak at the thought of not seeing your faces every weekend, concern at the hole this leaves in accessible queer options left on Kaurna Land … frustration at the crushing demands of this capitalist hellscape, and pride at the resilience, the joy and the solidarity that the Cindi’s community has showed over the last three years.”
Summing up the reason behind their closure, the team cited “maintaining the exorbitant costs of a night-time venue has been near impossible ... and at this point we can no longer continue… we are joining an ever-growing list of venues that just cannot function with the ‘post’-covid cost of living crisis.”
Yesterday Gang Gang co-founders Morgen Wynn and Nina Hadinata took to their social accounts to share that their Parkside location would close due to “a large hike in rent”.
“We opened [two] months before the pandemic and are proud of what we accomplished during that time but is time for us to move on. We have loved every minute of our journey and the community we have built but like many we are feeling the pinch.”
The Parkside location will close on Sunday June 16. “By early June, our goal is to bring everything you love to the city store and move everything under the one roof. Along with exciting new projects in the works under the GG umbrella,” the Instagram post added.
Speaking to Broadsheet, Wynn teased that this might include another food truck as well as daytime trade at their CBD venue 99 Gang Social. Another bricks-and-mortar offering is also on the cards, but this time the couple are looking closer to home: near Bellevue Heights or Blackwood.
Both venues are going out with a bang, with Gang Gang serving a greatest hits menu for the remainder of its time in Parkside. My Lover Cindi is poised to host a two-day “funeral” for the beloved LGBTQI+ venue.
