Cheers to that: Doors reopen at Mannum’s iconic Pretoria Hotel

An iconic SA pub hit hard by the historic River Murray flood has opened its doors for the first time since before Christmas, with management desperate to salvage some summer trading.

An iconic South Australian pub hit hard by the historic River Murray flood has opened its doors for the first time since before Christmas and management is desperate to salvage some of the warmer season trading.

The Pretoria Hotel – famously used in a West End beer ad with its picturesque beer garden spruiking the beauty of South Australia – shut its doors on December 22 as the rising river overwhelmed the protective barrier put in place.

Pretoria Hotel venue manager Brad Harper and staff member Chloe Underwood celebrate the reopening of the popular Mannum hotel. Picture: Dylan Hogarth

The closure was a devastating kick in the guts for the business, which had just weathered the Covid storm of lockdowns and restrictions for two summers and was anticipating a roaring return to peak-season trade.

However, flood waters saw the doors shut for 74 days in what is the busiest period for the hotel.

Venue manager Brad Harper said the hotel still hoped to capture some of the warmer-weather trade.

“South Australia as a whole has been supportive, everyone wants to wish us well and it’s been great – we hear it, it‘s been great and now we are back open,” he said.

“And that support, we need it now more than ever … we‘ve got a few months of warmer weather and just want to have the biggest Easter and end of March period as we have, for the town too.

“Every business that opens back up, it’s just one more step to our town coming back to what it was prior to the event.”

Pretoria Hotel venue manager Brad Harper in the pub's famous beer garden which is set to be relandscaped following recent flood damage. Picture: Dylan Hogarth

The Pretoria Hotel’s beer garden underwater during the peak of the River Murray flood. Picture Facebook

Mr Harper said the reopening of the business meant the return to normal work for his over 50-person strong workforce.

He stopped short of putting a figure on the cost of the closure or the ongoing clean up, but said the efforts to get the pub to the stage it could reopen were “incredible”.

“Walking in on that first day it was crazy – the place smelt, there was mud everywhere,” he said.

“It was pretty confronting, even though it didn’t make it into the first level of the hotel as such, when you get here and everything is covered in mud, the whole hotel is completely covered – the clean up has been amazing.”

He said the pub’s cellar – the hotel’s keg room – needed to be rebuilt and landscaping would continue in the outdoor areas.

“We have got two beers on tap in a temporary keg chiller system but we’ll be a couple a weeks away.”

The Pretoria Hotel in Mannum after its cellar and ground floor were inundated for three months after the 1956 River Murray floods.