Tweed district sweetheart, the Mount Warning Hotel, has reopened to a veritable horde of adoring patrons.
The original two-storey timber structure, one of the Tweed Valley’s oldest pubs, burned to the ground in February 2013 – the year it would have celebrated its centenary.
Over two years and nearly two million dollars later, the new incarnation of the ‘Uki Pub’, in in the northern NSW town of Uki, held its official grand opening last Saturday.
“This week’s been very hectic,” licensee Geoff Brown told PubTIC.
“We’ve had people from all over the Tweed district, and a lot down from the Gold Coast.”
The elegant Queensland-style hotel, with its panoramic balcony overlooking the town, was a popular family watering hole before a fault in the electrical board left the area heartbroken.
Its reconstruction has garnered a lot of interest in the district, and last week Channel Nine on the Gold Coast ran a story ahead of the grand opening weekend.
Brown says the response took them a little by surprise, but there were plenty of willing staff to cover the workload.
“After the first day, we had to increase the number of staff, due to the patronage,” said Brown, who has worked for owner Brett Watson for the past eight years.
“The hotel’s open for lunch seven days now, and dinner Thursday to Sunday. We’ve been closing around 10pm, but it might get a bit later come Friday night. We’re excited to see the first full weekend.”
