Serial pub revivers Matt Vero and Stephen Mitchell have brough the love back to Williamstown’s much-missed Morning Star Hotel, with a fresh design and tilt to family-focus.
Built 1890, the Star of the Williamstown peninsula succumbed to the ravages of COVID and late 2020 tenants the Dean family handed back the keys. Over the coming years it traded sporadically, before closing again mid-2023.
Vero and Mitchell previously revived Werribee’s Bridge Hotel, in 2020, and they have been part of the return of many others, including the Healesville and Orrong hotels.
Mitchell was a Williamstown local “for many years” and prompted his partner on the opportunity.
“When he saw it had closed down he was keen to take it on, knowing the fondness the locals had for the pub,” Vero told PubTIC.
He thought the location – in a back street, in the heart of the neighbourhood – made “a lot of sense” and late 2023 the pair signed on for the lease. The new outfit brought in as a partner another Williamstown local and friend of Vero’s, Aaron Onofretchook, who works as a professional painter.
After the better part of a year tuning changes, the Star reopened this month sporting a new look by Studio A Mi designer Anouska Milstein.
Select areas display a look influenced from 1970s California and surf culture, such as the gold ceiling and vinyl tables in the dining room, and specially sourced second-hand retro bottle-glass doors, which matched in with one of the hotel’s existing doors. These were utilised in several ways, adding to joinery and design features.
The revised menu has been created by Ben Issacs, previously executive chef for Stomping Ground. It will be serving an array of Aussie pub classics and select elevated offerings, with an emphasis on seafood to complement the location, just a few blocks from Williamstown Beach.
Ending a chequered past few years, Vero says its return has been widely welcomed.
“The Star was always a local favourite in years gone by but had lost its way in recent times. Locals were just keen to have a welcoming family friendly place they could come back to.”
