Justin Hemmes acquires Vic on the Park
Merivale is pushing out to the west, acquiring Enmore's Vic on the Park hotel in Marrickville.
A spokesman for the Justin Hemmes-led Merivale would not talk about how much the pub cost.
But similar large format pubs have sold for $20 million.
Merivale gets the keys to the pub on November 13.
At this stage, there are no plans for renovations and major refurbishments. Which means it will be business as usual for the venue with some focus on its food offerings.
The Vic is a popular pub, known for its live music, sports and family-friendly bistro.
It also has a carpark that’s used for outdoor gigs, record fairs and, from time to time, the odd basketball game.
The multi-storey 1247-square-metre hotel has enormous potential for Merivale.
Hemmes has a strategy of expanding the group’s portfolio outside of its traditional market of the CBD.
The Vic on the Park is Merivale’s second pub out in the west.
In 2015, it purchased the Queen Victoria Hotel on Enmore Road, renaming it the Queens Hotel. Shorter, hip and more to the point. It redesigned the pub with features like a long timber bar with a zinc top, surrounded by bar tables and leather banquettes, dark-stained timbers and rubbed-back finishes. There’s also a restaurant with a Hong Kong street food approach. The Queens now has two shiny new bars and a Cantonese restaurant serving mud crab, roast duck and dim sum platters.
The group had also snapped the Northern Beaches pub, the Collaroy, for a reported $21 million in August.
And it acquired Mascot’s Tennyson Hotel for $37.5 million at auction in December.
Merivale is also opening Mr Liquor’s Dirty Italian Disco, located in what was once the bottle shop of the Tennyson Hotel.
Launching later this month, the drive-way eatery will serve up American-style Italian food for six months.
by Leon Gettler, October 10th 2017
