The Australian Hotel – the only pub in the picturesque NSW mid-north coast town of Wingham – is being sold by long-time owners Tim and Tammy Smith as they look to the north.
Wingham is a town of around 5,300 residents due east of the Manning River estuary, near Taree, roughly 300 kilometres north of Sydney.
Equipped with a late-trading 1:30am licence Friday and Saturday nights, it includes a busy public bar and bistro, gaming room with 13 machines (entitlements), 11 pub-style accommodation rooms and a three-bedroom manager’s unit.
Blessed with “heaps of local demand” the business counts over $4 million in annual revenue.
Unable to accommodate a lot more trade in its current format, plans have been drawn for a new beer garden and restaurant at the rear.
Market sources suggest the Australian will likely fetch sale price circa $10 million.
Publicans Tim and Tammy Smith, who reside in Macksville, 178 kilometres further north, have owned the Hotel since 2003 but are feeling the need to relocate.
“Our daughter is now based in Brisbane, so it makes more sense for us buying pub in between where we live, and where our kids do,” says Tim.
“Wingham is in the wrong direction for us now, so we have not been able to immerse ourselves in the business the way we envisaged when we bought the pub.”
The NSW North Coast generates broad and active appeal, given its sustained population growth and perpetual short- and long-stay holiday trade, as migrators are drawn to the region’s lifestyle opportunities.
This has prompted infrastructure funding from both State and Federal government agencies toward a range of positive initiatives.
Seldom traded, some proximate North Coast hotels that have transacted in recent years include the Mooney family selling their Great Northern in Byron Bay mid-2021, Taphouse Group selling the Port Macquarie Hotel mid-2022, and the Shorts divesting their Seabreeze Hotel at South-West Rocks at the end of 2023.
The Smiths have engaged HTL Property’s Blake Edwards and Xavier Plunkett to market the freehold going concern through an Expressions of Interest campaign closing Wednesday, 18 March.
Agents suggest the pub’s exclusivity in a thriving town makes it “one of the better pub per capita ratios” seen in the state, and an opportunity to secure a unique asset in an unmistakable growth corridor.
“Limited competition from other licensed pubs and a large exclusive catchment of potential customers is always an appealing attribute for hotel buyers,” notes Edwards.
“With this asset, you essentially monopolise the pub trade in Wingham.”
