A multi-storey izakaya with a capacity of 500 people, with a bar, dance floor, games, karaoke rooms and piles of Japanese snacks, spirits and sake. That’s what Sydney-based hospitality group Solotel is promising when it opens Goros in Fortitude Valley early next year.

Goros, which is taking over the former Little Valley building on Warner Street, will use the venue’s former streetside dining room and second-floor bar area, while also having a third floor for karaoke and function rooms.

The opening of the original Goros in Sydney’s Surry Hills in 2014 is not a new concept for Solotel. It was inspired by current CEO Elliot Solomon’s previous trips to Tokyo, where he explored the city’s iconic food streets, which are often packed around the city. train stations of the city.

“There are all these food streets under or just behind the train tracks,” Solomon says.

“All these shops. Yakitori can be fried chicken and often happens in izakaya as well.

“While I would say the concept is based on an izakaya or Japanese pub, the experience is more like walking down one of those streets. “We tried to imagine it that way.”

Goros Sydney was designed as a place of discovery where different experiences are stored in different parts of the space.

Solomon says Brisbane will be the same, but Solotel’s in-house design team is collaborating with Brisbane-based KP Architects (The Greek Club, Sandstone Point Hotel, Manly Harbor Boat Club and others) to capitalize on the good qualities of the Warner Street properties. It looks like bones.

“A lot of the design language will be similar to Sydney, inspired by 1980s and 90s Japan, with lots of wood and warm colours,” he says.

“But the actual architecture of the building is really different from Sydney. Sydney is beautiful but you’re not really aware of the building itself; whereas Brisbane is a beautiful warehouse space with polished concrete and exposed beams that will help add character to different spaces.

I love Brisbane… It’s so optimistic. “There is so much excitement about the future and it is truly intoxicating.”

Elliot Solomon, CEO of Solotel.

“There’s also an outdoor area with the alleyway and also there’s a different climate in Brisbane, so Goros, but it’s been fine-tuned for the local context.”

The food menu will be similar to Sydney’s, featuring snacks like tuna wonton tacos and crispy chicken wings, teriyaki chicken and spicy pork skewers, plenty of toppings like pork and chive stickers and cheeseburger sauce, and main courses like pork katsu curry . and miso barramundi.

For drinks, there will be a suite of classic and specialty cocktails, sake bombs and highballs, as well as beers and wines. The back bar will focus on sake and Japanese whiskey.

Soros points to a renewed focus on Brisbane by Solotel, which owns Riverbar and Kitchen in the CBD. He previously ran Aria Brisbane until the fine dining restaurant’s closure in 2019.

“This will be the second venue, and it’s actually pretty close distance between the two,” says Solomon. “But if we have two, we might as well have five because of all the travel from Sydney to Brisbane and the events that come in. If we can get a little more mass, so to speak, we could have an office there.

“And on a personal level I love Brisbane. I’m always happy to be there and I think the whole team feels that way too.

“Very optimistic. “There is so much excitement about the future and it is truly intoxicating.”

Goros Fortitude Valley will open at 6 Warner Street in early 2025.