IN mid-1999, I stood in a recording studio in Watson and read a script that said: “I bet he’s been to Vision City.”

That line has come back to haunt me for more than a decade on the company’s TV advertising and, while I cringe whenever I hear it, I guess it must have worked for them over the years – but not perhaps for very much longer.

Vision City is among the group of tenants at Canberra House who will have to pack up and move out to make way for a new development on the site.

The Civic building is owned by property investment company Prime Space, which also has an office in Canberra House. It bought the building in 2010 in a joint venture with the Canberra Club.

Canberra House was built in the 1970s. Its tenants include Vision City, The Wig and Pen pub and the Canberra Club. Callers to my radio program reminisced about better days at the Canberra Club, but they also mentioned Bogart’s Restaurant and Bar. Longtime Canberra residents will remember Bogart’s as an upmarket eatery in the ‘70s and ‘80s.

Listener Heather had mixed memories of going up the stairs to Bogarts. “We booked to go with a group of friends for New Year’s Eve and there was a grog strike,” she said. “We spent the night drinking Coke!”

Caller Mark recalls it very differently in the mid-to-late ‘80s.

“We heard it was a pretty flash restaurant, so we dressed up, but when we arrived people were wearing track pants and uggies,” he said.

Cheryl was an apprentice in the kitchen. She told me it was “quite a high-class restaurant and it was full most nights”. Cheryl was there between 1981 and 1983.

“We used to do suppers, Thursday-to-Saturday night after the theatre and we’d have live bands in three nights a week. It was really popular,” she said.

I’m sorry I missed Bogart’s, but I won’t miss the Vision City ads!

Mark Parton is the breakfast announcer on 2CC.