Royal Reopening
RURAL TOWNS FIGHTING BACK series by Kerry Anderson
A local pub is considered integral to every rural Australian town providing an important social meeting place. In April 2017 when the Sea Lake Hotel burnt down and the only other pub in town was closed, action was clearly needed. Local resident, John “Bull” Clohesy picked up the phone and started calling a long list of people.
This wasn’t the first time John, a local farmer, had helped to rally the locals. Significantly, one of the first people he called was Alison McClelland who had been a key driver in forming the Sea Lake & District Hardware Cooperative two years earlier.
‘She resisted at first,’ John recalls with a chuckle, ‘but now she’s in, boots and all.’
Alison quietly smiles and the value of the partnership immediately becomes apparent. While John has the passion and drive, Alison is clearly one of those people who gets things done including all the tedious paperwork.
With the success of the Hardware Cooperative behind them and the importance of retaining a social hub in their agricultural town with a population of 642, John was now pushing for a Royal Hotel Cooperative. 42 investors were secured in the lead-up to the November 2018 auction ensuring that the somewhat dilapidated building, closed for the past eighteen months, had a future.
‘We set a $5,000 minimum buy in per share,’ John explains, clarifying that regardless of how much they invested, each member only has one vote as per standard cooperative model rules.
Significantly, a lot of younger people in the district purchased shares in the cooperative. ‘It’s filled a bit of a gap for the young ones and created a bit of a buzz about town,’ John confirms. Six directors were appointed to the Cooperative with a mix of young and old.
With the Cooperative formed and property purchase achieved, next came the biggest challenge; getting the 1910 building fit for purpose again.
‘We took 28 truck loads of rubbish to the tip,’ John recalls. ‘Young and old worked together for seven months. Counting our volunteer contributions, we have invested $5 million so far.’
Local tradies and businesses including the Hardware Cooperative benefited along the way. Two local managers and weekly discussions kept everyone on track with design ideas inspired along the way. Retaining as much of the historic charm as possible, the original floorboards now line a modern bar with a unique cement top, the brainchild of one of the coop members and volunteer workers.
It was a proud moment for the whole town when the Royal Hotel reopened its doors on the long weekend in June 2019 with a fully refurbished bar, sports room, restaurant, ten accommodation rooms upstairs, and a beautiful veranda overlooking the main street.
In a stroke of genius (or just good luck!), a former Melbourne chef was coaxed to Sea Lake to establish ‘The Juke’ restaurant as a separate business within the Royal Hotel.
‘16 local jobs have been created,’ John says with great satisfaction glancing across at one of their young managers working behind the bar.
‘None of us had hospitality experience,’ Alison admits. ‘We just opened the doors and winged it. So far it’s been successful, but we need to keep building capacity.’ There are also twenty more rooms behind the scenes awaiting refurbishment, so their task is not yet quite complete.
While the Royal Hotel’s former patrons - local farmers and travelling harvest workers - would still clearly recognise their old pub, the refurbishment is now successfully meeting the needs of international and city tourists recently attracted to Sea Lake by the photogenic Lake Tyrrell and silo art trail. Thanks to the tenacity of the local community, it’s a successful blend of old and new.
2020 update:
It’s a busy week for Sea Lake and the Royal Hotel when I catch up with Alison McClelland. ‘Singles night is being held tomorrow night on the balcony for Valentine’s Day,’ she explains reminding me that there are many young farmers in the district looking for partners. They’d thrown around a few ideas of speed dating and their young manager took up the idea and ran with it.
‘The ABC television crew are in town and the story is going to feature on Landline which is terrific,’ she tells me.
Having heard her partner in crime, John Clohesy being interviewed on ABC Radio the previous week, it is obvious that the Royal Hotel story has captured everyone’s imagination and given hope to other rural communities during a very tough time.
‘The Hotel has been going really well and we’re getting contacted by a lot of other towns also wanting to set up cooperatives. It’s lovely that we’re getting the attention,’ Alison agrees.
If you enjoyed this article you may also like to read Sea Lake and New Beginnings
KERRY ANDERSON: Founder of the Operation Next Gen program and author of ‘Entrepreneurship: It’s Everybody’s Business,’ Kerry works with small businesses and rural communities to help them embrace new opportunities. In 2018 she was named as one of Australia’s Top 50 Regional Agents of Change. READ MORE