Old mates Geoff Watts and Mal McKellar are leaving the game, putting up their Anglers Rest Hotel in Brooklyn, north of Sydney.
The Anglers Rest occupies a large 1,221sqm block on the beachfront of picturesque Brooklyn, on the idyllic Hawkesbury River, an hour’s drive from Sydney and thirty kilometres south-west of Gosford.
It offers a public bar, bottleshop nook, bistro, large beer garden, gaming room with eight machines, and eight pub-style accommodation rooms on the first floor.
Its location allows for a loyal base of locals, a generous allotment of Pittwater residents cruising the waterways, day-trippers and travellers up the Pacific Highway, and visitors to the surrounding bushland activities.
Brooklyn is a hub for boating and tourism, boasting several marinas, boat ramps and marine services businesses, home to the Brooklyn Ferry Service and Brooklyn Train Station. The area is seeing further activity, with the likes of the NSW Government’s project at Peat Island, and redevelopment of tired waterfront residences.
Watts and McKellar entered the pub game December 1985 with their purchase of the Anglers Rest, and have owner-operated it ever since. McKellar is looking to retirement, and while Watts might have stayed, the need has come to offer up their business.
Not hurried to decide what comes next, Watts says another pub is not on the agenda.
“I don’t think so, I won’t get one as good as this,” he says. “You’ve got to work it hard, but it’s good. It’s been good to us, and the staff’s great. It’s a real community hotel.”
They have listed the Anglers with HTL Property’s Blake Edwards and Sam Handy, reporting average weekly revenues of $33k, of which 77 per cent comes through the bar and bottle sales.
There is also an option to purchase an adjacent 1,319sqm block. The Hotel site holds a 12-metre height limit, with 1.5:1 FSR.
Beyond further focus on the accommodation or gaming room, which offers aging machines and no TITO or CRT, there is clear blue sky in the pub’s food offering.
“Currently the food operation is leased out for over $800 per week, so there is enormous potential upside for an operator to take back control of the food operation and increase the overall trade,” offered Handy.
The freehold going concern of the Anglers Rest Hotel is for sale by Private Treaty.
