WORLD-FAMOUS BIRDSVILLE HOTEL SELLS TO OUTBACK ENTREPRENEURS
One of Australia’s most famous hotels and icons of the red centre has sold, bringing new outback blood to the heritage-listed Birdsville Hotel. Located a leisurely 1,600 kilometres west of Brisbane and 1,200 north of Adelaide, the western Queensland town
SLY FOX LOSES BID FOR FREEDOM
One of the great late-night venues of Sydney’s inner west will stop the music for the last time this Saturday as the Sly Fox loses its fight to retain 24-hour trading. As reported in November, since 1999 the Sly Fox
TAMBREY TRANSACTS AMID NORTH-WEST CLARITY
More than two years after being put in the hands of receivers, clarity around future licensing has brought sale of the large-format Tambrey Tavern in north-west WA. Early 2018 both the Tambrey and Karratha Taverns in Karratha returned to market
ILLAWARRA HOTEL’S MYSTERIOUS CLOSURE
One of the Gong’s institutional late-night party venues has closed, ahead of a significant renovation and “change of use”. In the days after Christmas the party-hard Illawarra Hotel posted on social media it would soon be time “to say goodbye”
AUSSIE PUBS TOUCHED BY NATIONAL FIRE CRISIS
As Australia swelters through one of the worst bushfire seasons in living memory, watering holes across the country step up to shelter and support their flailing communities. Nationally the devastation has surpassed six million hectares, taking at least 23 lives
THORPE PARTS WITH HARBORD BEACH HOTEL
Ending more than four decades custodianship, former AHA NSW President John Thorpe has sold the iconic Harbord Beach Hotel to local real estate tycoon and industry newcomer Glenn Piper. Thorpe and partner Trish King took the reins to the landmark
BIG FISH SLAPPED WITH $11k FINE OVER MINOR BREACHES
Principals at a pub in Queensland’s Darling Downs have been convicted and fined $11,000 after breaches including allowing a minor to drink and gamble at the venue. An Office of Liquor and Gaming Regulation (OLGR) investigation discovered breaches by Big
MASENS OFFER UP GOOD INTENT
After a half-century of original ownership, the Masen family is reluctantly parting with its big suburban hotel of Good Intent in Grafton. In 1957 two Grafton locals, hotelier Reg Hinch and builder Reg Want, built the “Ultra-Modern” Good Intent Hotel
HUNTER LICENSEE HIT FOR BREACHING NEW LICENCE CONDITION
The licensee of Broadmeadow’s Premier Hotel has been punished for breach of extended licensing conditions on the first weekend of the venue’s extended trading. In the first half of 2019, three pubs in the Hunter region applied to Liquor &
MATILDA BAY LAUNCHES HEALESVILLE PUB AS SEXTON RETURNS
Australian craft beer royalty Matilda Bay will throw open the doors to its new pub-brewery in the Yarra Valley on Boxing Day, led by the returning founder, Phil Sexton. Sexton began Matilda Bay 35 years ago, partnering with Carlton &
