Balmain’s melodious feline the Cat & Fiddle Hotel is for sale, as veteran Richard Wynne wraps up the portfolio.
Located on a corner of arterial Darling Street, the Cat & Fiddle is a two-storey brick interwar pub that oozes charm. It comprises a public bar, TAB and gaming lounge with 12 machines (nine entitlements, three leases), expansive restaurant area and commercial kitchen, plus 10 accommodation suites on the upper level.
Following storm damage and a lease ‘walk-out’, the pub closed its doors late 2018. In the following months veteran hotelier Richard Wynne subsequently took both the lease and freehold, negotiating a two-year delayed settlement in order to initiate improvements and lift the valuation.
An overhaul required replacing the air-conditioning and carpet, installing new beer lines, taps and glycol system, replacing all gaming machines, in a new room with smoking solution and CRT, and stripping the kitchen to make way for the anticipated clientele, including a wood-fired pizza oven as star of the show.
It reopened late 2019 warning “watch out – the Cat is Back”, boasting a new menu by hatted chef Darrell Felstead, and what has become a well-patronised dedication to entertainment.
Bringing over four decades’ experience, the Cat was not Wynne’s first gastro pub, having previously steered Sydney’s Brooklyn Hotel and Forbes Hotel.
These days his only other pub is the Alexandra Hotel of Leura, scheduled for auction tomorrow.
Pub properties on the pub-happy Balmain peninsula don’t change hands frequently. In mid-2021 the Stevens family sold their London Hotel to Ray Reilly, and around a year later the canny Irishman also bought the Cricketer’s Arms, with a new partner.
The freehold going concern of the Cat & Fiddle is being sold via private treaty through Manenti Quinlan’s Leonard Bongiovanni, who notes both its rarity and potential.
“The Cat and Fiddle offers an opportunity to acquire a well-presented Balmain institution with further scope for growth, in a sought-after inner-west catchment.”
