Former NRL player Bryan Fletcher cashes in on Sydney pub boom in $10m sale

Sydney’s pub boom has helped former NRL player Bryan Fletcher and others score big with the sale of the Royal Albert Hotel in Surry Hills for $10m.

Momento Hospitality snaps up Royal Albert Hotel in Surry Hills for $10m from a group of owners including NRL legend and media identity Bryan Fletcher. Picture: Tim Pascoe

Sydney pubs remain in hot demand with Momento Hospitality swooping on the Royal Albert Hotel in Surry Hills, picking it for $10m up from a group of owners including former NRL player and media identity Bryan Fletcher.

The sale is the group’s second inner city hotel acquisition and follows last week’s announcement of its acquisition of the Young family’s Friend in Hand Hotel in the Sydney suburb of Glebe.

The Royal Albert, a Surry Hills boozer well known as one of Sydney‘s best craft beer haunts, had Fletcher as a partner in the hotel over the last decade.

“It’s been a great journey with that little pub, and as a consortium we’ve elected to pursue other capital deployment objectives at this juncture,” Mr Fletcher said.

The sale was handled by Sam Handy and Blake Edwards of specialist firm HTL Property and comes after the inner-city freehold hotel drew offers from hoteliers, restaurateurs, investors and developers alike.

Other notable inner city hotel deals include former Wallaby Bill Young’s sale of the Friend in Hand Hotel in Glebe for about $11m and the Dry Dock Hotel selling in Balmain. It was picked up by Peninsula Hospitality Group.

Nearby both the Hotel Hollywood and Bat and Ball Hotel in Surry Hills have sold and Mr Handy said there was a strong sense that the inner-city market “will enjoy sustained investor interest for some time”.

Fletcher played 180 NRL grade games with the Sydney Roosters and South Sydney Rabbitohs, winning a premiership with the Roosters in 2002.

He played 14 State of Origin games for NSW and represented Australia 13 times, before moving into TV after his retirement in 2007.