After 13 years building a solid business, the Mountjoy family has listed its under-management Harrietville Snowline Hotel in order to travel and “seek new challenges”.
In 2007 Anna and Bennett Mountjoy packed their bags and moved from Melbourne to Harrietville, to take on the local pub and absorb themselves in the lifestyle of the north-east Victoria town at the base of Mount Hotham.
Sporting no pub operational experience, they lived onsite for the first five years, clocking up plenty of hours while still finding time to enjoy skiing, mountain biking and hiking.
Initially they focussed purely on pragmatic repairs and maintenance, with a “If it wasn’t going to sell more beer, food or accommodation, it could wait” attitude.
The business grew, aided by an increasing reputation in the kitchen and major tourism growth in the area, allowing them to move into more of a ‘behind the scenes’ role, and Bennett focusing most of his time on project managing renovations to unlock more potential.
”We decided early on to focus on quality food as our brand, and based the offering on some of our favourite inner-city pubs,” says Bennett.
“As the business grew we took ourselves out of the day-to-day and tried to hire people with more hospitality experience than us, and then we’d get out of the way.
“For the last five years the pub has been run under management.”
One recent addition is the new deck area, which has already proven popular for weddings and events, and the offering is scheduled to be increasingly promoted for summer.
There is also potential in the accommodation side of the business, with the Mountjoys already planning to upgrade the rooms to 4-star amid local demand arising from a resurgence in the Bright region. The revised accommodation may include a communal BBQ area to increase yield and length of stay.
“It’s been a very rewarding adventure,” adds Bennett. “We had no hospitality experience at the start, but had some great assistance from Melbourne-based partners, hospitality group ABH (now Bluerock) in setting up good systems and processes.
“With the structure we have set up you could be as hands-on or as passive as you like.”
The couple plan to continue living in the town around their travels, and see an outright sale as the more harmonious solution.
They have engaged CRE Brokers’ Dan McDonald to market the property, reporting 17.5 per cent yield across diverse revenue streams including food & bev, accommodation, events and live music.
The Hotel is set on 3,314sqm on the Great Alpine Rd (Highway B500) through Harrietville, around 340 kilometres north-east of Melbourne.
The freehold going concern of Harrietville’s Snowline Hotel Motel is being sold by Private Treaty.
