Colbinabbin Hotel: Friends invest in their Victorian hometown’s pub

When you buy your hometown’s hotel, you are buying into the lifeblood of the community.

Local hub: Mary Ann Morgan and Julie Price inside the Colbinabbin Hotel. Pictures: Dannika Bonser

AS SOON as Julie Price saw her childhood friend Mary Ann Morgan’s name flash up on her phone, she knew what she was texting about.

The pair had grown up together in Colbinabbin, northeast of Bendigo, and Mary Ann had been bridesmaid at Julie’s wedding.

“All our families have been there since settlement. When I grew up there were only four girls my age — myself, Julie, Margie and Bernadette — so of course we all knew each other — I mean, everyone knows everyone,” Mary Ann says. (Colbinabbin’s population is currently about 300 people.)

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But it had been 10 years since they had been in touch, she adds. Mary Ann was in Melbourne where she has a law firm, while Julie at that stage was living in Darwin.

Then the news that Colbinabbin’s pub was back on the market reached both of them.

“I heard the pub was for sale, and I heard that Julie was interested,” Mary Ann recalls.

“I texted her and said ‘Can I give you a call?’ When she got the message, she knew it was about the pub.

“She said ‘I want to do it but I haven’t got the money’, and I said ‘I haven’t got the time, but I’ve got a few dollars, so let’s do it’.”

It has been a whirlwind two years. Their first weekend as owners was Easter in 2018, and Mary Ann says 300 people turned up and there were “cars everywhere”!

After 12 months, Mary Ann says it became obvious that the building needed some attention — “You know how a building looks tired and it needs work, but it goes from tired to exhausted overnight?” — so since last April, the indoor and outdoor areas of the pub have been extensively renovated.

The Colbinabbin Hotel at Colbinabbin is being redeveloped and is near completion. Photo: DANNIKA BONSER

In the meantime, the pub was the business partner for the successful Pick My Project application to paint the nearby silos, which are visible from the pub (Mary Ann is the project chair, and painting is about to get underway).

The projects all feed into one of the key reasons Mary Ann wanted to buy into the local business in the first place. A concern she refers back to constantly is the disconnect between country (where she grew up) and the city (where she lives and works), and she wanted to be an advocate for the country.

At one point when she is talking about the pub, she reflects on a story she was told by a client, who had donated money to help the recovery efforts after Black Saturday. In hindsight, he told her, he wished he’d given it directly to his neighbours who had been affected.

“It made me really think about what you can do as a direct investment, because if you rely on government or rely on a foundation or charity, you can’t have the same impact,” she says.

“Whereas if you directly invest without any bureaucracy, the world is your oyster.”

Then, finally, there is the old dream of owning a pub.

“I was looking for another project and then this came up.

“Even my father wanted to buy it once … everyone has this romantic notion about owning a pub.”

But that romantic notion almost went out the door when Mary Ann first saw the property and realised the work that was needed. “I just thought, no I am not going to do it, and walked away,” she says, but then very quickly realised she could not turn her back on the community.

“Because if that closes, the whole fabric of the community is gone, and it’s a real hub. It has to be. It’s not just about the drinking of alcohol. It’s somewhere people can go … it’s such an icon, even the building.”

While Mary Ann has driven back and forth between Melbourne and Colbinabbin, where she also has a property, it is Julie who has been front of house as the manager.

“She’s been amazing, what she’s done — getting bands, Friday night markets. She’s just kept trying different things and she took the attitude in the first year ‘I’ll try it and if it works, it works’.”

It has been a huge investment, and not one that will necessarily generate a financial windfall. But that’s not the point, Mary Ann says. It’s the social return for the community that’s important. She says advice from a friend has stuck with her. “You may not get anything back from it, but you will have had a good time,” she says. And that seems to have been the case so far.