Sydney pubs set for great revival
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.
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.”
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”.
