Justin Hemmes buys the Hotel Centennial
Justin Hemmes keeps expanding his pub empire with his Merivale Group purchasing Woollahra's Hotel Centennial.
The historic Oxford Street pub will be handed over to Merivale on December 12 and it will begin trading immediately.
The double-storey Centennial sits on a 780 square metre Oxford Street site opposite Centennial Park.
It’s best known as the regular watering hole for race-goers at the Randwick Racecourse as well as sports aficionados at the Sydney Football Stadium and Sydney Cricket Ground.
Merivale isn’t saying anything about how much it cost but the word in the market is that it sold for about $15 million.
The acquisition comes a week after Hemmes dropped $25 million for the Royal Hotel Bondi, turning him into the largest owner of popular Sydney pubs.
It’s all part of a long string of pub acquisitions, his 10th in three years, which have seen him pick up The Alexandria Hotel ($10m), The Tennyson Hotel in Mascot ($37.5m), The Collaroy Hotel ($21m) and the Vic On The Park in Marrickville which he bought from John Singleton’s Australian Pub Fund last month for $25 million.
All up, Merivale now operates 65 hospitality venues, all over Sydney.
These include the Ivy and the Establishment Bar in the Sydney CBD and the popular Coogee Pavilion in the eastern suburbs
It makes Merivale the leading pub group, ahead of restaurateurs such as celebrity chef Matt Moran's Solotel group and established pub owners such as the Laundy family.
Hemmes bought the Hotel Centennial off the Medich family in a private off market transaction. The Medich family is winding up its hospitality holdings and moving on to residential development and the Hotel Centennial was the last pub in their portfolio.
Merivale has brought in chefs Ben Greeno (The Paddington) and Danielle Alvarez (Fred's) and they will be presiding over the Centennial’s new menu.
by Leon Gettler, November 22nd 2017
