Professionals Tamborine Mountain 
Tamborine Mountain might be beautiful during the day, but it isn’t without its nightlife either. Ian Martin is one of the owners of Hickory, and one of the mountain’s best-kept secrets and the best place for a cocktail. Find out more with us.
by Kyle Hitchmough
How would you describe Hickory to somebody who might not understand what it’s about?
It’s been crudely described as a rib joint, but it’s more than that. We use Bangalow pork which is the best quality protein you can buy, but we’ve also balanced the offer with quite a good range of seafood, vegetarian food, we can look after people right through to the celiac’ s who we don’t get very often, but we’re more than capable. One of the more notable changes other than the décor and the interior has been the staff we have here. We have a whole new range of employees including a very good chef who’s doing great things for our output out of the kitchen and some really nice service-oriented front of house as well.
How did Hickory get started?
The place was started by a group of locals who came up with the concept of a place that could sell ribs and wings and cocktails and the like. They did that at a time when there wasn’t strictly speaking a bar on Mt. Tamborine. There were pubs and a few licensed restaurants, which this place could double as in concept, but it was promoted pretty successfully as a cocktail bar. When we took it over, we were wanting to change that a little bit, we wanted to create a slightly different demographic. That took us about three or four months, we’ve got a particularly good clientele now who come through and get to enjoy the changes that we’ve made, whether it’s to the décor or some of the supplies, better produce, better raw material…
Do you think your ribs are the most popular item on your menu?
Certainly the ribs and the wings. Only about 30% of our audience is from the Tamborine area. We get a lot of people driving up here from the Gold Coast, as far south as Coolangatta. We get lots of Brisbane, and many coming through who have researched the dining options and are using one of the homestays up here. We get people from the top to the bottom of Queensland.
You also offer a wide selection of cocktails. Can you tell us more about that?
I think it’s the only bar up here that actually offers a range of cocktails. We cover the standards, but we have our own in-house innovative dessert cocktails and so on. They’re very popular. On any given night we can be knocking out quite the pile of cocktails. It’s why people come. We also offer south-east Queensland craft beers, we’ve got a couple of Black Hops beers, Lost Palms from Miami, as well as Fortitude up here on Mt. Tamborine, and in addition we have a craft beer fridge that carries up to 20 different stubbies of craft beers, half a dozen ciders, things like that. There’s a really broad offer, as well as a wine blackboard that we can change seasonally.
What’s an average working day for you here at Hickory?
An average workload for me would include buying stock, handling staff and appointments, and I actually have a physical role here in the kitchen, where I support Gideon, our chef. We’re very lucky to have him, the quality of everything that we’re doing with Gideon in the kitchen is great. I’m basically his assistant. It’s pretty much a hands-on role that I have: Callum, my business partner, tends to have more of an administrative role, and he looks after the accounts, the pay, all of that. We split those key functions between us.
What’s your opinion on the Tamborine Mountain area and community?
The peaceful, laid-back nature of the place. It’s a wonderful location, there’s lovely people living up here, and a really good community spirit. We’ve still got many friends up here who we’ve retained contact with and visit on a very regular basis.
What do you think Hickory provides to the area above all else?
A missing option. A bar where people and come and have a cocktail and choose from a menu that will satisfy a peckish taste through to a ravenous taste. A secluded, quiet little space tucked away that offers privacy, a warm room in the winter and a nice chill place in the summer with a really good ambiance. We have really good music mixes that we’ve put together. It’s an alternative that, prior to Hickory opening, didn’t really exist outside of the pubs. We fill a pretty important gap, I think.
What’s your favourite thing about working here?
Since we’ve changed the approach of the business and the demographic of people that we get in here, we are enjoying our customers. We go out of our way to make sure that they’re happy. In the last maybe five to six months of operating, what’s come with the change in that demographic is a really good vibe and a really nice bunch of people. Working out in the kitchen I can tell they’re having fun and loving their food. I make a point of going out and talking to the customers, seeing how they’re going, seeing if they’re enjoying their food… We’ve dropped onto a nice thing with our customer base and we look forward to coming in here because we know we’re going to have a room full of such nice people every night.
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Or email the writer at kyle.hitchmough@hotmail.com, and follow me on Twitter @realcasualrvws.
