The future of the Annandale Hotel is up for sale as current owners Matt and Dan Rule have put the pub on the market.
The Inner-West icon was publicly offered on March 22, the first public offering in over 20 years.
City News spoke to Matt Rule about why the brothers had decided to sell.
“We’ve been talking with a joint venture partner for a while now which hasn’t borne fruit,” Mr Rule said. “So it’s gotten to the point where the hotel can’t continue in its current form. We can’t run the pub as a venue anymore, we’ve put it on the market to flush out someone who wants to come in on a joint venture, but ultimately if that doesn’t happen then the hotel is for sale and it’s time for us to move on.”
Mr Rule said that after early battles with Leichhardt council all of their DA’s had been approved as of last April and now further development was simply a matter of money.
“We’ve got plans approved through council so it’s more than just the live music, we’re trying to develop the hotel into more than just a live music scene because being just a live music venue just isn’t profitable.
“We’ve been working toward this for quite a few years now and we’re at the point where it can all happen, but we don’t have the dough to do it.”
Some of the proposed changes include; potential improvements to the live music room, expansion of the beer garden from 80 to 250 seated, a small bar expansion into a major bar, footpath seating to be transformed into a coffee bar for mornings in addition to the already popular ‘Pub Cha’ and redevelopment of the ‘Wok ‘n’ Roll’ restaurant.
“We;ve got a wonderful thing here with live music where you can drive heaps of traffic through this place, but ultimately only get them for a couple of hours, we want to turn that around and get them for dinner and watching the footy and all the other things you do at pubs,” he said. “If we can do it, we’ll be a fantastic pub with one of the best live music rooms going around.”
While it is still early days City News understands that Justin Hemmes, owner of the Ivy and Establishment, is one of the people to have met with the Rule brothers since the Annandale went on the market.
When asked if there had been any highlights in his time at the Annandale Mr Rule’s response was “any sold out show.”
“It’s been a bit of a joy owning this pub,” he said. “We get to see a lot of wonderful things and meet a lot of wonderful people.”
