Why this blog? We are a group of people in Cairns Nth. Qld. who for the last 15 or so years have spent some of our spare time playing celtic music in a regular Saturday session. For a lot of years (8 - 9?) we played on Saturday afternoons at Gilhooley's, later known as the Irish Bar at the Pier. After the session we liked to go upstairs to our favourite Italian restuarant "Donninis Ciao Italia". We got to know the restuarant and its staff there very well - Yves, Marco, David, Jeff, Maria, Mandy, Gail, Franco, Greg, Louis, Picollo, Mario and our very favourite Gilberto.
We have even followed some of the staff as they have left to start their own resturants, ice cream parlours or just work in other places around town.
The thing we really liked about Donninis (apart from the food which was consistently good, particularly the Canollis and the best lemoncello ever tasted) is that the staff treated you like family. We had many fun nights there and we had a standing reservation for anything between 4 and 14 people anywhere between 7 and 9 pm. ... A restaurateur’s nightmare really but we were never turned away - even when others without bookings were, even if the staff had to steal table and chairs from the shopping centre side and sit us in "coach" rather than the "pointy end" (which we preferred as we could keep an eye on the chefs in the kitchen keeping an eye on the young female customers!!)
When the Irish Bar met its demise and the Pier closed for refurbishment, the session moved across to the other side of town to the Grand Hotel. This is in Spence St. Known as "Eat St."
We have even followed some of the staff as they have left to start their own resturants, ice cream parlours or just work in other places around town.
The thing we really liked about Donninis (apart from the food which was consistently good, particularly the Canollis and the best lemoncello ever tasted) is that the staff treated you like family. We had many fun nights there and we had a standing reservation for anything between 4 and 14 people anywhere between 7 and 9 pm. ... A restaurateur’s nightmare really but we were never turned away - even when others without bookings were, even if the staff had to steal table and chairs from the shopping centre side and sit us in "coach" rather than the "pointy end" (which we preferred as we could keep an eye on the chefs in the kitchen keeping an eye on the young female customers!!)
When the Irish Bar met its demise and the Pier closed for refurbishment, the session moved across to the other side of town to the Grand Hotel. This is in Spence St. Known as "Eat St."
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