Glebe stalwart the Friend In Hand Hotel has been sold by Wallaby publican Bill Young to Marcello Colosimo’s Momento Hospitality.
In a return to fortune, Young bought the pub in 2019 for around $10 million. His father and the Young family had previously owned and operated it during the 80s and 90’s.
The two-storey Friend enjoys a mix of revenue across bar, bistro, gaming and wagering. It holds a midnight liquor licence with ‘early opener’ trading flexibility, and 19 gaming machines.
Located on Cowper Street, close to Broadway Shopping Centre, the Hotel is adjacent to the new West End Residences development, bringing 232 apartments, and the planned Franklyn Estate redevelopment, slated for another 425 apartments, and surrounded by numerous other large-scale housing developments.
“We’re going to explore some different options,” says Colosimo, “but at the moment we’ll just have a good chat to the locals and people around the area and see what suits.
“It’s a nice little pub and Billy’s done a good job. He’s a good operator, and it was a pleasure doing business with him.”
Momento Hospitality owns and operates a stable of large-format hotels, predominantly in the north-west Sydney growth corridor, but finds some compelling upsides in the Friend.
Colosimo confirms he is actively looking for strategic opportunities in the city hotel market, which he says can offer some good potential and development opportunity.
The pub also presents opportunity for the group as a recruitment and training ground, close to the city and universities, which he says will help his whole business.
Colosimo went to UTS, just a short walk from the Friend In Hand, and considers the return to old stomping grounds.
“I spent a fair bit of time drinking at those pubs when I was at uni. It’s changed a bit since then. It will be interesting.”
The private sale was managed by HTL Property’s Andrew Jolliffe, Dan Dragicevich and Sam Handy, who note the underlying fundamentals of this class of asset.
“Sydney’s inner-city and fringe CBD hotel market presents several strategic investment opportunities, all underpinned by valuable and malleable commercial land holdings adorned by historically robust hospitality business revenues,” says Handy.
