The restaurant used a famous old boot factory, built in 1930, which made boots and shoes for 43 years on the corner of Caxton and Hale streets across the road from what was then Lang Park.

The boot was the restaurateur's tip of the hat to the old factory.

When the Brisbane Boot Factory restaurant and Spaghetti Emporium stopped trading in 1979, the building became the first home of the popular Underground nightclub.

Preliminary approaches to return the boot to Paddington have recently been made to the car yard owner by Brisbane Expo '88 historian Peter Rasey, on behalf of Brisbane City Council, when he learnt the boot was to be scrapped.

“The Underground was part of the nightlife around Expo '88 and when I found out the big boot was on a parcel of land that was listed for sale last year, I became interested in recovering it,” Mr Rasey said.

The owner, who was overseas, was said to be considering the approach.

The Boot Factory building was demolished in October 1990 to make way for the Hale Street widening to accommodate the Inner City Bypass.

The original building was the Morris Boot Factory, built in 1930 during the Great Depression by then-owner, bootmaker Frederick Morris.

Frederick Morris’s great-grandson, David Loosemore, said the big boot was first acquired by Boots Camping in 1990, when the Morris Boot Factory factory was demolished. It has remained a feature of Gympie Road for almost 40 years, regardless of the changing businesses under its sole.

With his wife, genealogist Rachel Loosemore, he has researched the family factory links to Paddington’s history.

The factory was built by his great grandfather to create jobs in the midst of the Great Depression in 1930, Mr Loosemore said.

“He built it right in the middle of the Depression and he did it because he had a strong sense that he needed to provide jobs for the local community,” he said.

When the boot factory opened in 1930, Frederick Morris referred to this in his speech.

“I have been told by some of my friends that I am very foolish to spend money in putting up an expensive building while the times are so bad," Mr Morris said in his speech.

"But… if I can do anything to develop this business and leave it in such a state of efficiency that it can be carried on to give employment to more and more people, I shall feel that I have not built in vain.”

At its peak, up until the 1950s, the factory employed 180 people, with almost two-thirds of its staff coming from then working-class Paddington.

It sold shoes Australia-wide and was the biggest of six shoe factories in Brisbane.

Mr Loosemore said the boot's historical links to the area should be remembered.

“It’s like the Big Pineapple. If someone was trying to demolish the Big Pineapple people would say ‘No, we’ve got to keep this',” he said.

“People remember the big boot. They’ve seen it along Gympie Road for so long.

“If you are going to put it anywhere, Paddington is probably the best suburb to put it.”

Mr Loosemore said he understood it would be difficult to display a five-metre fibreglass boot and tie it into the history of Brisbane.

But he believes it is worth it to preserve part of Brisbane’s history as a manufacturing centre and the city’s shift towards entertainment.

“You would need to connect to it to why it was there – explain that there was a real factory there – and connect it with the community," he said.

“It could part of a history of Paddington and with a picture of the boot factory itself.

“I think people would be interested to know it went from boot factory to restaurant, to the Underground, because a lot people cared about it as the Underground.

"Now, it is a community park, so something that brings it all together and shows how the site changes over time."

Mr Rasey has tracked down Stefan’s big tennis racquet, which was originally on top of Milton Tennis Centre and had it restored to Milton.

He has also traced many of Expo '88's white Artbuster sculptures.

Mr Rasey said, if the big boot could be acquired, the idea was to display it on top of five- to six-metre-high poles, lit by solar lamps with a history of the building and the suburb.