Waltzing Matilda Inn [c.1958-????]

Submitted by moddsey on Wed, 01/30/2019 - 20:43
Current condition
Demolished / No longer exists
Date completed
(Day, Month, & Year are approximate.)

Address: 9 Cornwall Avenue. 

In about 2009, the entire street and its name was removed when the K11 shopping mall was built on the site.

Photos that show this Place

Kowloon Bars, Restaurants and Night Clubs
1958
Kowloon Bars, Restaurants and Night Clubs
1958
1972
See more photos of this place

Comments

Whilst that whole area was demolished to make way for K11 development, the Waltzing Matilda Bar was known by then as Wally Matt Bar. The bar relocated to Humphrey's Avenue and thence to 152 Austin Road where it is known as the New Wally Matt Lounge. It is more a local bar these days, however they have brought in a local expat to help bring back local and foreign visitors alike to visit this iconic bar. I am trying to find out exactly when the bar opened to celebrate its 61st or 62nd anniversay as nothing was done to celebrate perhaps the most Famous Bar of them all

The Waltzing Matilda Inn was at 9 Cornwall Ave. Cornwall Ave. no longer exists; it was where the outdoor pedestrian walkway now runs through K11. The bar was founded in or around 1958 by Michael Sims, an Aussie merchant seaman, who owned it up to the 1970s.  The name changed to "Wally Matt" some years after he sold it, and changed again to "New Wally Matt" when it was on Humphrys Ave. In 2012 it moved to Austin Rd as the "New Wally Matt Lounge".

Sims owned other restaurants and clubs in Hong Kong and Macau, including another Waltzing Matilda (Arms, not Inn) at 22 Cameron Road. He died in Australia in 2009. Here's his obit in the SCMP: https://www.scmp.com/article/681287/founder-iconic-kowloon-bar-could-sp…

The place is famous as being HK's first, and - if you ignore the multiple ownership, name and location changes - by far oldest, gay bar.