Amid an historically quiet time in the pub game, Deborah Lang and David Kelly have taken the plunge with acquisition of the Crookwell Hotel in the NSW southern tablelands.
The Victorian two-storey pub was built 1884 on a 2,183sqm corner site. Inside provides single-service bar, commercial kitchen and bistro with seating for around 100, gaming room with 10 EGMs, and a function room for 100 people.
The business incorporates a well-patronised drive-through bottleshop, and eight pub-style accommodation rooms upstairs, plus another eight motel-style rooms at the rear and a big four-bedroom manager’s residence.
For nearly 32 years Bruce Cox has been operating the Crookwell, but ready for retirement he engaged Manenti Quinlan’s Charlie Fenton to market the business.
Lang and Kelly are true Crookwell locals. They have spent time behind bars at a number of pubs, some in the southern highlands, but are ideally prepared for taking on the community watering hole.
“Both David and I were born and raised here,” she explains.
The pub came to market late 2019 boasting plenty of potential, and Lang says they are looking at some refreshed elements during the forced closure, bringing added future potential in the bistro and gaming. They’re also planning on extending trading hours, amongst other initiatives.
“We really want to incorporate some local history, as well.”
Crookwell is around 30 minutes’ drive from Goulburn, with a population of 2,700 people.
The couple are taking over a 20-year lease with 13 years remaining, on the only pub in town with gaming, reporting (pre-crisis) over $55k total weekly revenue.
“The hotel presented extremely well and is certainly a credit to both Bruce and Dale Cox, the outgoing publicans,” offered Fenton, himself a fourth-generation publican.
“It’s great to see new people coming into the industry.”
