Torquay Hotel prepares to unveil $5m beer garden after mixed online response
The first stage of the Torquay Hotel’s $5 million beer garden makeover will open in December, with some locals concerned the venue has sacrificed its pub charm for city-style concrete aesthetics.
A hugely popular Surf Coast venue is preparing to unveil its $5m beer garden makeover in two stages, with the first phase set to open in December.
The Torquay Hotel officially announced in September the beer garden redevelopment, which will feature additional heating, toilets, covered areas, entrances, a pizza oven, and an outdoor live music stage.
While initially scheduled to open in mid-December, owner Joel Taylor told the Geelong Advertiser the first stage of the project was now likely to open in the latter half of the month, while the second stage would be rolled out next year.
“We’re going to finish stage one, which involves all new bars, all new toilets, a new pizza kitchen, and new floor space,” Mr Taylor said.
“Stage two, which will be completed post-Easter 2026, involves a beautiful big roof that’s going to sit over part of the beer garden to make it all weather.
“That was something we couldn’t get done this year, but we could definitely get stage one open for the summer, which is really important to us and our customers.”
Mr Taylor said the total contract price of the mega project was about $5m, with the Victorian government contributing $1.6m through its regional tourism investment fund.
“The government funded about 30 per cent of the original contract price and that doesn’t include contingency or overruns, which we’ve had a little bit of,” he said.
He said the support of the state government was “crucial” in getting the renovations across the line.
“I had this project in the pipeline, I had it drawn, I had a planning permit, and I hit the pause button on it because it was nearly cost prohibitive to do it,” Mr Taylor added.
“The way construction and building prices are at the moment, I didn’t know if this was going to be worth it, but with the government coming on board and investing in us it made it achievable.”
Mr Taylor said the pub had received a “huge amount of positive feedback” about the upgrades to the outdoor space, which he said customers had long found “trying”.
The multimillion-dollar project hasn’t been welcomed by all, however, with dozens of people expressing their disapproval of the design on a recent Instagram post shared by Torquay Hotel.
“I’ll wait until I see it and it might be great, but it looks like it’s lost the charm of what made that area great (and) a local pub. Looks like every pub in inner city Melbourne and that’s the target audience I guess,” one user commented.
“Looking like every other city concrete jungle beer garden, such a shame,” another wrote.
“Looks like a prison yard,” another user added.
Mr Taylor said the new beer garden was designed to ensure a “great outdoor experience” year round.
“We have been operating the hotel since 2017 and the beer garden was just an open yard space and it was all pretty basic,” he said.
“After operating the hotel for a few years I really thought about how that beer garden is the heartbeat of the hotel and when that’s operating in its full capacity, the pub is really energetic.
“I thought, ‘why write off winter?’ Let’s make it so we can operate 365 days of the year.”
He said while the temporary closure of the beer garden during construction had been “tough”, he had been “surprised” by the amount of support the pub had received.
“I’ve explained to people it’s like trying to operate with one hand tied behind your back,” he said.
“The beer garden is such a key part of our venue and so it has been difficult, but we’ve got such an experienced team at Torquay so we have all been able to put our heads together to figure out how best to operate while we’ve had that space closed.”
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Originally published as Torquay Hotel prepares to unveil $5m beer garden after mixed online response
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