Sydney pubs set for great revival
![The Four in Hand hotel in Paddington.](https://www.realcommercial.com.au/news/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/FOUR-IN-HAND-HOTEL-1024x650.jpg)
Get set for the revival of the great pubs of the eastern suburbs, with hotelier John Azar saving Paddington’s Four In Hand from developers with a $7 million purchase; Merivale’s Justin Hemmes about to get the keys for the Royal in Bondi and now a rebirth of the Robin Hood at Charing Cross.
It is mooted that they may even put bee hives on the roof.
Azar’s plans are low-key and likely to happen overnight with the European light fittings coming down, sporting posters going up and the Macleay Valley Rabbit Pappardelle replaced with schnitzel.
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Hemmes’s will likely be more dramatic once he settles in.
![Royal Hotel Bondi](https://www.realcommercial.com.au/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/ROYAL-HOTEL-BONDI-1.jpg)
The Royal Hotel in Bondi.
And Daniel Whitten, whose family has owned the heritage-listed building at the famous Waverley intersection for 40 years, wants to give the pub a makeover and create a retail laneway called Charing Square similar to Broadway’s Kensington St, with up to eight cafes and restaurants and 29 apartments above.
Urban planner Stephen Moore of RobertsDay says: “Charing Square will also be a model for local sustainability with current ideas including water harvesting, solar energy and even bee hives on the roofs that may be utilised by local cafes.”
![Robin Hood Sydney development](https://www.realcommercial.com.au/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/ROBIN-HOOD-PUB-2.jpg)
Daniel Whitten, licensee of the Robin Hood Hotel in Waverley, wants to convert the area occupied by the pub’s bottle shop and neighbouring property into a Kensington St Chippendale-style laneway development. Picture: John Appleyard.
“The Robin Hood is a great suburban local pub and we want to keep it that way, but the streetscape is dead,” Whitten says.
“It’s a C-grade shopping strip and we want to bring in some cafes that will appeal to people walking their dogs at 7am through to people wanting to drop into a wine bar of a night.”
The plan follows their purchase of a site behind the bottleshop between Bronte Rd and Carrington Rd.
The proposal transforms 3% of the land into a publicly accessible laneway and plaza.
This article from the Wentworth Courier originally appeared as “Four In Hand, Royal Hotel, Robin Hood Hotel makeovers set to shake up the east”.