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AIDA Cafe Restaurant Club
At the corner of William and Aberdeen Street in Northbridge, the long-vacant building most people remember as AIDA Café Restaurant Club, has a long history that stretches back to the gold rush era. Officially known as the Gibbs Building, it has been part of Northbridge’s changing story for more than a century.
Location
The Gibbs Building is often casually referred to as 289 William Street, although historically and officially, it spans 283–291 William Street. This is because it was designed as a multi-tenancy commercial building containing several shopfronts and entrances under one continuous structure. In early Perth, it was common for one building to contain multiple businesses, each operating under its own street number.
Hutt Street
Prior to the building being constructed, William Street was known as Hutt Street during the mid-19th century. It was named after John Hutt (1795–1880), who was the second Governor of Western Australia, serving from January 3, 1839, to February 19, 1846. He succeeded the colony’s first governor, Sir James Stirling and was known for strictly following the rules for building new settlements. His progressive, yet often unpopular stance on the rights of Aboriginal people saw him advocate for their legal protection and prosecuted Europeans for violence committed against them. He also supported the preservation of Indigenous languages, partially funding George Fletcher Moore’s A Descriptive Vocabulary of the Language in Common Use Amongst the Aborigines of Western Australia (published by William S. Orr & Co, London in 1842 and still available today).
At the time, swamps and lakes (including Lake Kingsford) physically separated the northern area from central Perth, so it made sense to treat it as a different street. Lake Kingsford formed part of a wider wetland system known to the Whadjuk Noongar people as Gooloogoolup. It later became known as Kingsford Lake after Samuel Kingsford, who was allowed to drain it to power his flour mill near Mill Street in 1833. As Perth grew from 1830s onwards, the lake was progressively drained and filled to make way for development and the railway. The area is now occupied by the Perth Train Station, busport and Yagan Square.
By the late 1890s, Perth was expanding rapidly due to the gold boom. Once the swamps were drained, land was reclaimed and the city needed clearer, more logical naming of its streets. Hutt Street was officially renamed William Street around 1897–1898, linking it with the southern section of the street, which had previously been separated by Lake Kingsford.
William Street was named after King William IV, following the British colonial practice of honouring monarchs through street names. He ruled from 1830 until 1837 and was known as the “Sailor King” because of his long service in the Royal Navy, which began when he was only 13.
(All photos from December 2024)
Early Northbridge
The area surrounding the Gibbs Building was long considered part of Perth, even though it was physically and socially distinct from the city center, separated by the railway bridges. The name Northbridge gradually came into regular use as the area developed its own identity, particularly as a hub for working-class housing, migrant communities, entertainment and later nightlife. In 1981, a public competition was held to choose a name for the precinct, with “Northbridge” selected through that process. The State Government formally approved and gazetted the name in 1982, establishing it as a separate inner-city suburb.
The Gibbs Building
Dating back to the gold-boom era, the building was constructed between 1905 and 1906. A parapet with raised lettering, still visible today, reads “GIBBS A.D. 1906 BUILDING.” The two-storey commercial premises was built to house shops at street level with additional rooms above.
Architectural style
The Federation Free Classical architectural style was popular in Australia around the turn of the 20th century. It borrows ideas from classical architecture, like symmetry, columns and decorative mouldings but uses them freely rather than strictly. It was meant to look solid, respectable and successful, without being overly grand.
The walls are built with bricks and covered in render (cement or lime-based coating), which helps to:
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Protect the brickwork
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Create a smoother, more “stone-like” appearance
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Allow cost-effective decorative detailing to be added.
The battlement parapet
The top of the building features crenellated detailing, also called battlements, which are tooth-like shapes often associated with castles. They serve three purely decorative purposes including to help make the building stand out and act as a billboard for the owner’s name and date.
Crenellated detailing also gives a building more of a dramatic skyline by breaking up what would otherwise be a flat roofline. The raised “teeth” and recessed gaps create strong light and shadow, making the top of the building feel more three-dimensional and visually striking. This pattern also draws the eye upward, making the building appear taller and more imposing, while subtly echoing the look of castles and fortresses.
Central pediment
A pediment is the classical “crown” at the centre of a façade, which traditionally marks importance or authority. On a commercial building like the Gibbs Building, it signals a serious and permanent place of business.
Pilasters
Flat, column-like features attached to the wall, used to visually divide the building into sections.
Cornices
Horizontal mouldings that project slightly to create shadow lines and a sense of finish at the top of walls.
Who was Gibbs?
The building is named after Gibbs, almost certainly the owner or developer who commissioned it. While the name is proudly cast into the parapet, detailed biographical information about Gibbs is unknown. What is clear is that Gibbs had enough capital and confidence to invest in a substantial brick commercial building at a time when William Street was still emerging.
Many early Perth buildings bear the names of builders, investors or businessmen who were prominent locals but tend to be poorly documented beyond rate books, directories or newspaper notices.
The earlier shop
Prior to the Gibbs Building, the site was already commercially used by a local produce merchant named J. McDonough, who sold goods such as potatoes, grains and chaff during the late 1890s (Chaff is chopped straw or hay, often from wheat or oat and mainly used as animal feed, which was an essential commodity in the city where horses were still heavily used).
Little is known whether the McDonough’s shop was demolished or redeveloped to establish the bigger, more modern Gibbs Building.
Upon leasing individual shops in Gibbs Building, an advertisement was publishing in May 1906 for the remaining two storefronts that were available to lease by Blythe and Jackman, local auctioneers on William Street.
Life inside the building
Over the decades, the Gibbs Building housed a number of small, family-run businesses that reflected the everyday life of Northbridge.
Retail and food
Records and directories place the following businesses within the building or its immediate address range:
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Underwood’s Drapery – selling fabrics and clothing
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George Watt’s Drapery – another long-running textile and clothing business
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Black & White Fruit Shop – a fresh fruit and vegetable shop
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Jubilee Café – a mid-20th-century café and restaurant serving locals
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Champion Butchers and other small traders nearby
They were modest businesses, practical, affordable and community-focused. The backbone of inner-city life, before supermarkets dominated retail.
Upstairs rooms
Like many buildings of its era, the upper floor likely contained offices, storage or lodging rooms. While there is no surviving record confirming how many people stayed upstairs or whether horses were stabled on site, nearby establishments certainly provided such facilities. Horses were still common in Perth well into the early 1900s.
William Street’s reputation
Early heritage descriptions note that William Street hosted a mix of commercial, cultural and “immoral” activities. This language reflects historical attitudes rather than modern ones. At the time:
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Billiard saloons were viewed suspiciously, due to their association with gambling and alcohol
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Brothels existed in regulated grey zones, often tolerated but policed under nuisance laws
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Entertainment venues blurred lines between social life and moral panic
Importantly, “cultural” and “illicit” simply coexisted. Inner-city streets have always been places where everyday life, pleasure, commerce and controversy overlap.
From retail strip to nightlife precinct
As supermarkets, shopping centres and car-based retail expanded in the mid-to-late 20th century, small family shops struggled to survive. Many closed, not because they failed but because the economic rules changed.
Northbridge, meanwhile, evolved into an entertainment and nightlife precinct:
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Close to the CBD
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Well served by transport
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Zoned for mixed uses
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Already culturally diverse
This made it fertile ground for bars, restaurants, clubs and late-night venues.
AIDA Café Restaurant Club
By the early 2000s, the Gibbs Building entered its most widely remembered phase: AIDA Café Restaurant Club.
AIDA was an Egyptian-themed restaurant, lounge and shisha bar, offering:
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Egyptian food and coffee
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Late-night dining
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Shisha (water-pipe smoking) in a designated area
The name AIDA likely references both the famous opera set in Egypt and the broader cultural associations of Egypt itself. The venue described itself as offering a “mini-slice of modern Egypt”. Not a museum but an immersive social experience.
Shisha, a deeply social tradition in many Middle Eastern cultures, became a central attraction. To comply with Western Australian law, AIDA operated a separate, controlled smoking area, navigating complex regulations around enclosed spaces, ventilation and public health.
At the time, it was promoted as one of Perth’s earliest dedicated shisha venues, helping to define a new niche in the city’s nightlife.
Vacancy and fires
After AIDA closed around May 2016, fashion retailer Fi & Co relocated across the road. The building was sold to overseas-linked owners Unir William Street Pty Ltd on 2 June 2016 for $3.4 million. Since then, it has remained vacant.
Very little information is publicly available on Unir William Street Pty Ltd, which was registered on 8 June 2016 and owns two other properties on Hay Street and Thelma Street. Another company almost certainly linked to it, is Unir Hay Street Pty Ltd, which was registered on the same day.
Despite being locally heritage-listed, has been left unsecured for years, making it vulnerable to squatters and vandalism. It ultimately suffered three fires, including a major blaze in March 2025.
This has raised serious questions:
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Why can a heritage building be left to decay?
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Why are protections focused on demolition and not neglect?
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Why are owners rarely held accountable for inaction?
Local governments have powers under building and planning laws but enforcement is slow, complex and often avoided, particularly when owners are overseas or unresponsive.
Why only the façade is protected
Heritage protection in Western Australia often prioritises external appearance, especially streetscapes. Interiors are harder to regulate, easier to alter and more expensive to restore.
Which is why so many redevelopments only keep the façade, despite interiors holding just as much historical value.
Demolition by neglect
While it’s unrealistic to expect all owners to share the same attachment to local history, respect for it should be the minimum standard. Demolition by neglect remains a waiting game for landbanked buildings and the AIDA building appears to be no exception, exacerbated by slow enforcement and a system that rarely holds owners to account, before irreversible damage is done.
