Gerrard Viergever and his famous moustache
We found 66-year-old age pensioner Gerrard Viergever on the dilapidated side of St Vincent Street in the old run-down Port Town Hall Café.
One of a growing team of people in the Port who are not constantly complaining and waiting for the government or the council to resuscitate our city, he’s turning the old St Vincent Street café into a first class but inexpensive French restaurant with a special purpose licence. He simply ignores all the negative thinking about the place.
Gerrard Viergever discusses his plans for his French restaurant 'Moustache'
It’s not the first time Gerrard has created a new restaurant and he admits he’s had “some elaborate and disastrous failures.”
“I’ve been through a very dark time and I could have just sat in the corner on the pension, but I saw this run-down cafe; it was a disaster zone, but I needed shelter at a reasonable price.
“The owner has a strong emotional attachment to the first property he bought when he came to Australia and I believe he called it the Town Hall Café; he agreed to let me live here and see if I could make a go of it.
He’s a bibliophile and has some extremely valuable books, the earliest of which was published in 1528 and he has reluctantly parted with some of them to raise capital.
Port people, including a number with trades skills, have rallied round to help, one a lady with three arts degrees working as a barmaid to get by who has offered to make ceramic wine pots. Gerrard will sell her the pots for her.
He has big plans for the opening on Bastille Day, July 14.
“In the days when I was rich and famous, I always celebrated Bastille Day with 35 friends and a uniformed guard of honour. My friends included prime ministers and many other well known people.
“This year I’m going to have all my current friends, we’ll have a guard of honour and at an appropriate time we’ll storm the Town Hall opposite.
“Someone suggested bringing a guillotine, but I’ve found the Council are quite reasonable to deal with, so maybe not.”
The name of the restaurant was staring me in the face: it’s the ornament on Gerrard’s upper lip — Moustache
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