Fitzroy Hotel: New owner planning to transform historic venue

“It's the only country hotel in Rockhampton where you can come and sit on a veranda and we’ll give you peanut butter toast at the bar and take you home if you’re drunk.”

Growing up in Depot Hill has fostered a sense of community for many locals and the historic Fitzroy Hotel has been the suburb’s wateringhole for decades.

Once serving the cattlemen and meatworkers near the river, and enduring many floods and croc sightings, the pub is still standing to this day, although it has changed hands many times.

Sweet Cheeks adult shop owner Corrin Whitaker is the newest publican to take on the Fitzroy, looking after the place many old timers and new residents turn to for their social outings.

Corrin grew up in Depot Hill with her mother, who sold raffle tickets at the pub.

Tragically, her mother was murdered in Kent Street in 1998, with the Fitzroy one of the last places she visited before her death.

“The day before she was selling raffle tickets here,” Corrin said.

“I told her I was going to buy it when I got rich, and everyone didn’t believe me and then laughed, and so of course there’s a passion.”

Now the new owner, Corrin plans to bring in high tea, pizza, pool, boys nights, karaoke and more.

“It's the only country hotel in Rockhampton where you can come and sit on a veranda and we’ll give you peanut butter toast at the bar and take you home if you’re drunk,” she said.

“There’s just so much love in here.”

It’s a pub with heaps of history going back to the 1800s when it was built by Charles Wakefield.

Corrin says the pub on East and Wood streets may have originally been called the ‘Crocodile Hotel’ and adopted the name of ‘Fitzroy’ later on, as she believes the original Fitzroy Hotel may have been on Fitzroy Street.

There’s a legend that someone may have died in the pub and Corrin wants to look into this, to see if it was perhaps the original owner.

And being located near the river has its challenges when floodwaters rise, with water marks higher than 1.5m on the nearby power poles from the many times floodwaters have hit.

“It’s not just a pub to me, it's my home,” she said.

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