9 minute read
PROPERTY: LEAVE IT TO THE LOCALS
Leave it to the locals
The past year has shown that when a regional pub needs saving, locals can band together not only to keep a venue afloat, but to help it thrive.
-By Cat Woods.
IN 2020 and 2021, many Australians shifted their lives from capital cities to the regions seeking more affordable homes, more space for their dollars, the sanctity of nature, a sense of community, and perhaps less restrictive measures than in the urban centres. For example, the average age of Victorians moving from urban to regional areas was 34, and the trend has largely been for millennials – aged 24 to 40 - to seek a new home outside the major cities.
According to a Regional Movers Index report released this year (a partnership between Regional Australia Institute and the Commonwealth Bank), 61 per cent of total net outflows were from Sydney, while 45 per cent flowed from Melbourne in the 12 months to March of this year.
The influx of millennials accustomed to city leaving into regional towns where there is scope for development is leading to, and will likely continue to result in, development and improvement of facilities. According to the Regional Australia Institute, millennials and Gen-Xers often bring business skills to regional areas. Where urban dwellers are used to a plethora of bars, clubs, fine dining, local takeaways and the café lifestyle, regional townships are not quite as fast as their capital city counterparts in offering a range of dining experiences. What regional towns do brilliantly, and have for centuries, is pubs.
Syndicate saviours
Regional pubs are a social hub for the local community, a place where families go for meals, celebrations and mourning and a place where local sports teams, friends and community groups collect and commune. Over the last year or so, there have been several instances of pubs facing closure throughout the country, and being saved by a group of locals forming a syndicate, buying the pub and keeping it operating.
The Criterion Hotel in Gundagai was bought by three old school friends that live in the area
In many cases, the local investment results in a pub that reflects the history of the venue and renovates with respect to the people and community who know and love it. Locally owned and managed venues also result in jobs for local tradespeople during renovations: plumbers, builders, electricians, furniture-makers, and jobs for locals once the pub opens: managers, bartenders, wait staff, cleaners, administrators and chefs.
Victoria’s Woodside Beach Hotel in Gippsland underwent an extensive series of renovations and refurbishment care of the syndicate of 10 that formed to save the historic venue. In June this year, mostly local investors purchased the 150-year old pub, reinventing it as a modern dining and bar attraction through the support and help of local labourers. The new Woodside Beach Hotel boasts a commercial kitchen twice the size of the original, a dining hall, two outdoor spaces, and a 16-metre bar.
Woodside Beach Hotel now boasts a 16-metre long bar
The hotel had closed in 2016. It was the combined investment and energy of locals that enabled the pub to reopen in 2021. A group of fishermen, farmers and a high-profile ex-AFL player (Josh Dunkley) formed a syndicate, which successfully bought and renovated the pub. It has reopened with a 70-seat dining room, public bar, wood-fire enhanced lounge, two beer gardens and three luxury accommodation ‘pods’.
In March, Gundagai’s The Criterion sold to a syndicate for approximately $6 million. Popular in the local community, it averages a profit of $60,000 per week proportionately derived from food and beverage, gaming, accommodation and a drive-thru bottle shop. Criterion was bought by a syndicate, ‘Lancer Group’ lead by Buena Vista Hotel (Mosman) freehold owner Tim Fallon and two other locals Steven Allan and David Tozer, which had also purchased the Royal Hotel in Tumut in 2021.
Significantly less pricey, but just as valuable to the community, The Royal Hotel in Grong Grong, in southern New South Wales, was purchased for just over $1 million by a group of locals who pooled their resources to buy the pub, built in 1875. Gemma Purcell, one of the syndicate members, told ABC News, “We knew that no-one was going to walk in a with a quarter of a million dollars to purchase a little country pub,” she said.
“We felt there was a chance to spread that risk in a cooperative, a unit trust, or a whole lot of shareholders and have enough interest at a low level to spread the risk and buy the pub.”
Ultimately, 169 shareholders invested in the pub,enabling both the purchase and the subsequentrenovations and refurbishments.
A booming operation
In Western Australia, Bolgart’s 104-year-old pub faced an uncertain future. The community, about140 kilometres from Perth, rallied, with 16 families- mostly comprising locals - investing to buy the Bolgart Hotel and give it a much-needed makeover.
Licensee and syndicate member Craig Wilkinstold Australian Hotelier, “Mother’s Day was our second anniversary, so we bought it in May 2020.”
Mother’s Day this year saw the hotel booked out, with over 100 guests at lunch. The same happened again on Father’s Day.
-Craig Wilkins, Bolgart Hotel
“It’s very popular, extremely popular. I didn’t believe we’d be able to do these numbers,” Wilkins says.
The hotel is open six days, though it’s a seven-day operation.
“We don’t open for lunches Monday, and we just do cooking for house guests on a Monday night.”
The hotel has proven popular beyond the Bolgart township, Wilkins attests.
“You have to book on weekends nowadays. We get people from all over the state, from Perth, other local towns within a 120km radius. It’s been overwhelming actually.”
The attraction, Wilkins believes, is the gourmet menu, a comprehensive beer menu of craft and mainstream standards, and his own acumen as a long-time, five-star chef.
From purchase to current day, the Bolgart Hotel team are still renovating. Upstairs, they’ve added split cycle air-conditioning and heating, repainted, installed new electricals, renovated the bathrooms (“beautiful! Wilkins exclaims), re-timbered the balconies and put in new balustrades, and done up the dining room downstairs. They’re about to start work on renovating the wrap-around verandah.
“We try to use as much local skill where we can, even though it’s not always possible with times of COVID. Local plumbers, local electricians, local builders,” Wilkins says.
Back to country roots
Tim Fallon and two school friends make up the newly formed Lancer Group. When Fallon sold his Cremorne home last year for an eyewatering price, it gave him the financial freedom to invest in some passion projects that returned him to his rural roots.
“Me and my family were country kids,” Tim Fallon says. “We have two family farms between Gundagai and Tumut, so we’ve been going up every school holidays for the last eight years so I’ve gotten to know the people and the towns."
-Tim Fallon, Lancer Group
He was not new to investing in pubs, having invested along with his brothers in Mosman’s Buena Vista Hotel in 2015. Fallon’s enthusiasm for rural pubs wasn’t shared as adamantly by his brothers though, and hence he formed the Lancer Group trio.
“Some old school friends and I started with the Royal in Tumut 18 months ago. Our farm is up the road, so we knew people. We thought the town deserved a really good, traditional Aussie pub. We started with the food and brought back live entertainment. So, we’ve worked hard to make it the best pub in town. Then, we went on to buy the Criterion in Gundagai in June, so it’s really new. It’s really fun to buy these old pubs, look after the staff, improve the food, and see everyone flooding back in and excited to be back. We put the chook raffles back on.”
Criterion Hotel co-owner Tim Fallon (left) with GM Nathan Stelter
The Royal “cost about a million all up”, since the building had fallen into a decrepit state, Fallon explains. But, when it went “gangbusters”, he took on the Criterion, knowing that previous management had really invested in its upkeep, and it therefore didn’t require much renovation.
“The previous owners David and Jedda [Hindmarsh] had built and maintained the magnificent hotel, so there’s less renovating to do. Our focus is on great food and entertainment and a great staff culture,” says Fallon. “Our general manager Nathan is doing a fantastic job. And we have been really well-received as new owners by the community.”
Great pubs form the centre of Australian towns and their social life, Fallon believes.
The Lancer Group syndicate spent $1 million renovating the Royal Hotel, Tumut
“Renovating thoughtfully and carefully respecting the heritage is important. We asked the locals what would and wouldn’t work, and then we set about design and construction to the tune of $1 million.”
A pub with no beer was Slim Dusty’s greatest nightmare, but a town with no pub is surely much more devastating. Thanks to passionate communities, friendships forged through a shared love of communal dining, entertainment and socialising, and skilled hospitality professionals keen to live and work in the regional areas of Australia, the tradition of great Aussie outback pubs reigns on.
