Good Nights opened in Windsor in 2019 as a “more playful and fun” offsider to Brunswick favourite Good Days – bringing the latter’s wildly popular chicken rice and beef brisket pho to south-side diners while introducing new, shareable dishes like DIY rice paper rolls and turmeric pancakes alongside noodles and larger dishes.

But four years on, the Vietnamese eatery is saying, well, good night. The final service will be on April 6, the team announced on Instagram last week.

“It feels like yesterday that we were hammering down those bright blue booths and smoothing out the speckled floors that bared [sic] witness to many shared moments over plates of smokey [sic] noodles and glasses of fruity wine,” the post reads. “We were only just getting started and we will be continuing our journey with exciting new opportunities that will be announced in due course …”

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Speaking to Broadsheet, owner Nam Nguyen says when the lease at 12 Chapel Street came up for renewal, he decided to consolidate the casual Good Days brand rather than keep the more polished Good Nights going.

“The Good Days brand made sense post-Covid, with the changing environment. It’s elevated Vietnamese but it’s still quite accessible and casual,” says Nguyen. “It’s for people seeking a nice dinner without feeling like they’re going out to a restaurant, per se.

“People are looking for shorter dining times, and our takeaway side of the business is really good as well. That all fits into the Good Days model a bit more, whereas when you have a full restaurant, takeaway can diminish the brand a bit or take away from that. That, and the fact we’ll be able to focus on doing a few products really well – with better margins and lower waste.”

With his attention now firmly on Good Days, Nguyen is on the hunt for another Good Days location, probably in the inner north, and probably a larger interpretation of the Brunswick site.

“So it might have some of the dishes we’ve been doing at Good Nights, but closer in line with the Good Days model, which is more like a diner or noodle bar. So single-serve dishes instead of sharing.”

“We’re looking at a few suburbs – your usual suspects like Collingwood, Fitzroy, Northcote, Thornbury,” says Nguyen, who lives in Coburg.

In more welcome news for the north, Nguyen and his team will also bolster their presence on Sydney Road soon, with the introduction of a new banh mi shop, Good Days Hot Bread (read all about it here).

“Please do come and say hi to Danniel, Ferdy and their team [at Good Nights] before we ignite the wok for the last time,” the Instagram post continues. “For now we say Good Night to our Windsor Eatery and many thanks to all that have crunched, slurped and devoured within.”

The last service at Good Nights is on Thursday April 6 before the Easter long weekend.

good-nights.com.au