Logbook · 27 October 2026

The Customs House and the casino

Walk in from Abbott Street for dinner at Soy Kitchen and you are inside a heritage-listed building that is sixty years older than the casino wrapped around it.

Building

former Cairns Customs House

Address

6A–8A Abbott Street

Designed

Robert Henry Bowen, 1936

Built

1936–37 by Watkins & Deal

Heritage register

Queensland, 21 October 1992

Today

Soy Kitchen Street Food

A customs house for a port town

Cairns was a port before it was a resort. In 1936 Robert Henry Bowen of the Commonwealth's public works office in Queensland drew up plans for a new customs house, and local contractors Watkins & Deal built it in 1936 and 1937 for £8,500. Wikipedia describes it as an inter-war customs house using classical motifs. A residence on the first floor was occupied until 1970.

From customs to casino

In 1989 the customs service moved to a new building in Aplin Street. Three years later the Queensland Government sought submissions for a casino on the site, and the old building became part of the development. It was entered on the Queensland Heritage Register on 21 October 1992. The Reef Casino Trust listed on the stock exchange in February 1994, its casino licence was granted in January 1996, and the casino began trading on 31 January 1996.

Inside it today

The building now houses Soy Kitchen Street Food. The restaurant describes restored timberwork alongside contemporary street-art murals, cherry blossom trees among its displays, and small private rooms inside the historic building. It has a door straight onto Abbott Street and another beside BAR36 in the foyer, and serves from 4 pm every day (from 11:30 am on Fridays and Saturdays).

The dome on the roof

For years the complex also carried a glass dome on its roof. In 2009 the trade press called it the $4 million Cairns Rainforest Dome; it later traded as Cairns ZOOM & Wildlife Dome, home to animals including koalas, crocodiles and kookaburras, and Wikipedia, citing a 7NEWS report, records that it closed in October 2023. If you see the dome in an older photograph of the hotel, that is why the current listing does not mention it.

A city at 150

The building's story sits inside a longer one. In 2026 Cairns marks 150 years since the colonial township was established; the Cairns Historical Society, which runs Cairns Museum on Lake Street, is holding a year-long programme of exhibitions and talks. The museum is a short walk from the hotel and open Monday to Saturday, 10 am to 4 pm.