The Port Office Hotel is back after completing a seven-month refurbishment program after a fire ravaged the historic building

One of the Brisbane CBD’s historic pubs has risen again after a fire in January ripped through the building threatening its future.

A BRISBANE heritage-listed pub, which has survived all that floods, economic ups and downs and the odd scandal could throw at it over its colourful 155-year history, has risen again.

The Port Office Hotel, on the corner of Edward and Margaret streets in the Brisbane CBD, has completed a seven-month $2 million plus rebuilding program after a fire in the kitchen of its dining room in January.

Refurbished and under new management the Port office Hotel in the Brisbane CBD will be open for business at the end of February

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For publicans Meagan and Nick Gregorski, who bought and refurbished the hotel in 2017 and transformed it into an award-winning gastropub, it was never a case of walking away.

With support from regulars from the corporate world the Gregorskis started over again and seven months later it has returned to its former glory.

“When news of the fire spread, this incredible group of local regulars materialised, ready to do whatever was needed,” Mrs Gregorski said.

“While they couldn’t help with the rebuild, they certainly maintained their loyalty, even when we only had two beers on tap and three lunch dishes on the menu created from a tiny kitchenette upstairs.

“They kept coming every day. Without them, it would have been heartbreaking. We call them The Front Bar Army, and we cannot thank them enough.”

The dining room of the historic hotel had to be gutted and rebuilt while there work was done on the front bar and the upstairs Colonial Bar which suffered smoke and water damage.

Firefighters are battling a blaze at Brisbane's Port Office Hotel on January 23, this year.

The dining room — nicknamed The Office — is now open for business under executive chef Graham Waddell, while the front bar, with its old-school style timber long bar, is humming as is the Colonial Bar takes over the full floor, including wraparound veranda.

CBRE industrial capital markets senior director Edward Bull said the pub was an important part of the Brisbane corporate world.

“The Port Office is an institution and the Gregorskis are the best publicans in town. It’s 165 steps away from Waterfront Place where our office is and it has a broad range of appeal with the traditional old pub feel in the front bar and the high-end dining room at the back,” he said.

“We take our clients there and it’s of great benefit to us.”

Originally called the Shamrock Hotel, the pub opened its doors in 1864, undergoing it’s first of many renovations in 1876 when it was reconstructed as a two-storey masonry building with verandas.

In 1888 the remodelled hotel was described as being, “extremely commodious, containing fifteen bedrooms, a drawing room, two bathrooms and four public rooms on the ground floor”.

It was patronised by workers from nearby shipping, industrial and riverside businesses and politicians.

The Port Office Hotel during the 1974 Brisbane floods.

But the success of the business was cut short when the hotel experienced its first major disaster with the 1893 floods which caused extensive damage.

The year 1909 it changed its name to the Port Office Hotel and in 1955 the hotel was refurbished again this time under the direction of architect Francis Leo Cullen.

This work included the removal of all the verandas, lacework, canopies and chimneystacks and renovation of the interior fittings.

In 1974 the great Brisbane Flood hit the city, with the Port Office among the many casualties and she underwent renovations in the 1980s.

The Port Office Hotel was recognised for her importance in Queensland’s history and her aesthetic significance when she was listed on the Queensland Heritage Register in 1992.