Endeavour Group’s plan to upgrade Cavenagh hotel rooms

The new owners of a popular Darwin CBD pub are planning a range of upgrade. Read what’s happening.

Generic imagery of CAV Hotel. Picture: Pema Tamang Pakhrin

The new owners of Darwin’s “best hotel” will spend millions upgrading accommodation at the premises, but change comes with a promise to retain the popular pub’s “local” feel.

Executives at the Endeavour Group were in Darwin visiting their six Top End hotels and 17 bottleshops as they consolidate the Cavenagh Hotel purchase, which was finalised in September.
Endeavour Group chief executive Steve Donohue said the company was “custodian” of the more than 350 hotels it owned nationally, and the same would apply with the Cavenagh.

“Historically The Cav has been perceived to be the best pub in town, so lucky for us to be the custodians,” Mr Donohue said.

“It’s great to have it in our portfolio and we’re looking forward to putting more into it to make it even better again.”

Endeavour Group chief executive Steve Donohue (left) with Endeavour's Territory assets manager Russell Reid. Picture: Pema Tamang Pakhrin

Within weeks of the purchase being finalised, Endeavour rebranded The Cav’s drive-through bottle-shop as BWS, with the hotel’s accommodation next in the group’s sights.

The seventh-largest hotel accommodation provider in the country through its Nightcap brand, Endeavour will upgrade accommodation to that of its other about 2500 rooms across Australia..

“The bottleshop’s been upgraded to BWS with new fixtures, a new fit-out, new fridges, a new range, and the accommodation will be the next thing,” Mr Donohue said.

“There’s 80-odd rooms and we’ll go to tender in the new year doing an uplift of the accommodation there.

“You have an opportunity to have a scaled accommodation offering at The Cav. You’ve got some amazing rooms right on the pool there. You’ve got the balcony rooms and you’ve got a whole bunch of other rooms around the outside and through the middle, so not all of them are created equal.

Endeavour Group is now expected to consolidate it’s NT portfolio. Picture: Pema Tamang Pakhrin

“You’re going to have family rooms, smaller rooms a diverse range of rooms at a standard that meets our Nightcap standard.”

He said renovations to the pub, if any, would be largely determined by the patrons.

“We don’t run a chain of pubs, we run a collection of hotels that are local pubs,” he said.

“We run a chain of retail outlets with BWS but our pubs are local pubs and we run them with local teams and they’re run by local people.

“We’re always focused on trying to devolve that ownership or custody of the local pub to the local patrons and leadership group of local people.”

Experienced venue manager Russell Reid has been appointed to manage Endeavour’s six Top End hotels.

The Cav is Endeavour’s sixth Top End acquisition along with the Airport Hotel, Palmerston Tavern, Parap Tavern, Bell Bar and Bistro and Beachfront Hotel.

It spent millions last year upgrading the Airport Hotel and is in the process of doubling the size of the Beachfront Hotel’s decking.

Endeavour’s most recent two Top End acquisitions have caught the eye of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, which probed both purchases to ensure they didn’t breach competition rules.

Endeavour is cautious about further NT acquisitions.

“I think we’ll take a breather for the moment,” Mr Donohue said.

“The Beachfront and The Cav were both two big buys and we’re already jumping into how we’re going to raise their standards a bit.

“So we’ll probably look back through it in a year or two’s time and take stock to see where we want to go.”