FULL LIST: All 250 Brisbane pubs and who owns them

The battered and bruised Brisbane pub and bar scene has started to re-emerge from lockdown, so what better time to remind you of the best the city’s hospitality scene has to offer?

Brisbane’s hospitality scene is picking itself up and dusting off the taps after a turbulent year at the hands of the COVID-19 pandemic, so there’s no better time to get out and enjoy a cold one with friends and family.

And, with more than 250 pubs, bars, nightclubs and restaurants holding commercial hotel licenses in the Brisbane local government area, there are plenty to choose from.

SCROLL DOWN FOR THE FULL LIST OF BRISBANE PUBS AND WHO OWNS THEM

While interstate groups account for 70 per cent of the ownership of the city’s watering holes, there are still plenty of local families and operators still in the front bar.

We’ve put together a full list of every Brisbane pub and who owns them, as well as giving you a rundown of the key families still with a stake in the city’s hospitality scene.

REVEALED: Who really owns Brisbane’s pubs and bars

THE FAMILIES

McGuire Group (The Paddo, Alexander Hills, Colmslie, Calamvale)

The McGuires are the operators of Queensland’s largest family owned and run chain of hotels. Since the early 1900s, the family has been running pubs in Brisbane and southeast Queensland bucking the trend that has seen many local pubs sold out to major retail chains. Handed down from one generation to the next, the family boasts it values continue to focus on the importance of honest value for money in friendly, neighbourly hotels. One of Queensland’s richest families they are worth an estimated $185m.

Tom McGuire, director of McGuire Group, at the Colmslie Hotel in Morningside.

Fitzgibbons (THE Glen and Osborne)

Brain Fitzgibbons, his younger brother Vince and sister Imelda Mann purchased The Glen Hotel at Eight Miles Plains in 1960.

The trio had good training in the industry with their parents Michael and Lily Fitzgibbons buying their first Queensland hotel The Kirabelle in 1936.

The couple ultimately added The Southport Hotel, The Central Hotel in Toowoomba and The Daniell Hotel in George Street Brisbane to their portfolio. Brian and his wife Elaine lived at The Glen Hotel with their nine children and it became a compulsory pit stop on the way to the Gold Coast and a hub of dinner dances, cabarets and discos.

Top singers and bands performed there including the legendary Johnny O’Keefe, Kamahl, Billy Thorpe, Daddy Cool and The Deltones.

By the 1980s the hotel was in need of major refurbishment and brothers Brian and Greg Fitzgibbons, sons of Brian and Elaine, transformed The Glen to its original colonial charm.

With the rapid development taking place on the southside of Brisbane, The Glen Hotel is once again evolving to meet the needs of the community that surrounds it. They family also own and operate the Osbourne Hotel in Fortitude Valley.

Owners Brian and Cathy Fitzgibbons at the Glen Hotel in Eight Mile Plains.

James Power (NORMAN HOTEL)

BEER courses through the Power family’s veins. Most Queenslanders of a certain age will remember when publican Bernie Power took on Alan Bond with his Power Brewing in the 1980s. So it was no surprise when nephew James Power took over Brisbane’s historic Norman Hotel at Woolloongabba in 2015.

The 131-year-old hotel sells more than 2000 steaks per week, oysters are the number one entree and the hotel was built in the same year as Central Station.

Power added coleslaw to the long standing steak, salad and baked potato menu taking on cross-town rival the Brekkie Creek.

Nick and Meagan Gregorski (Port Office)

Described by one industry source as the “best publicans in town” the couple took over the heritage-listed Port Office Hotel on the corner of Edward and Margaret Streets in 2017 and transformed it into an award-winning gastropub.

But disaster struck two years later when fire raged through the hotel kitchen.

A $2 million rebuilding program, which involved refurbishment of the dining room and front bar, was supported by the local business community. “When news of the fire spread, this incredible group of local regulars materialised, ready to do whatever was needed,” said Mrs Gregorski. “While they couldn’t help with the rebuild, they certainly maintained their loyalty even when we only had two beers on taps and three lunch dishes on the menu.

Nick Gregorski and partner Meagan Gregorski outside Port Office Hotel after they took over the lease.

Mantles (Pig ‘N’ Whistle, Charming Squire, The Sound Garden)

Hospitality King Godfrey Mantle and wife Jenny operate Queen Street’s Pig ‘N’ Whistle, Jimmy’s on the Mall and Milano along one of Australia’s busiest pedestrian malls. The group also owns six other Pig N Whistle outlets including Riverside, Indooroopilly, Brunswick Street, King George Square and West End as well as the Charming Squire at South Bank.

Mr Mantle started his business career in landscaping while completing a law degree. The property and hospitality business was established in 1979. In the past 18 months he started the process of selling his Pig’ N’ Whistles and last year sole the leasehold to a Redbank Plains pub. He also has his Pig ‘N’ Whistle pubs at Brunswick St, Fortitude Valley and Indooroopilly on the market.

Jenny Mantle and Godfrey Mantle

THE BIG CHAINS

ALH Group

Backed by supermarket giant Woolworths and billionaire hotelier Bruce Mathieson, ALH Group ALH is one of the country’s major operators of pubs. It owns more than 30 venues across Brisbane including the Breakfast Creek Hotel, the Albany Creek Hotel and Victory. The company employs over 15,000 people across Australia at more than 300 licensed venues and in excess of 550 retail liquor outlets. It also operates the BWS and Dan Murphy’s liquor chain.

Australian Venue Co

Australian Venue Co is Australia’s second largest pub and bar operations and in Brisbane and it operates 10 outlets across the city including The Regatta, Fridays, and the Wickham. The Melbourne-based firm has grown rapidly from five venues in 2014 to more than 150 across the country. That has been helped by a series of acquisitions topped off by a deal last year with Coles to manage its hotels in Queensland. AVC is majority owned by giant private equity firm KKR.

In 1965 Rosalie Bogner and Merle Thornton chained themselves to the footrail in the public bar of the Regatta Hotel in Toowong to draw attention to their campaign to give women the right to drink side-by-side with men in public bars

Hallmark Group (Retro’s Cocktail Lounge, The Lord Alfred, Finn McCools and Lefty’s Music Hall)

Established in 2014, the Fortitude Valley-based Hallmark Group has stuck to its mantra of offering punters a diverse range of restaurants, bars and nightclubs across Australia. Under the guidance of Scott Hempel and the Heanan brothers — Joe, Sean and Matt — they have a growing eclectic mix of businesses in Brisbane, the Gold Coast and Toowoomba. They have traditional pubs like the Lord Alfred Hotel in Brisbane, the Spotted Cow in Toowoomba and the Cavill Hotel in Surfers Paradise along the Irish bar Finn McCools and the quirky Lefty’s Music Hall. There are Gold Coast nightclubs and Retro’s Cocktail Lounge in Brisbane. However, not everything has gone according to plan with Hallmark taking over five Jamie’s Italian restaurants in 2018 just before administrators were appointed seeking to turn them around. However, in March this year with COVID on the march they closed four of them in Brisbane, Sydney, Adelaide and Perth, leaving Jamie’s Pizzeria venue still standing.

Lord Alfred Hotel before State of Origin III kick off.