Michele Minogue, Mystic Park Hotel publican
Reopening
LEAH [Farrow], Danny [Barry] and I – we’re the three publicans – we’re all looking forward to the pub reopening and bringing back a little bit of that atmosphere that we’ve lost during the COVID period. We just want this beautiful building to breathe life again.
On Friday we begin opening up the bistro and the bar with restricted numbers. People are able to sit down for a maximum of two hours. We have advertised that we prefer bookings, which is also so that people aren’t disappointed if they rock up and then there’s no room for them. People have been ringing to book for this weekend and the following weekend.
There are a lot of locals that are looking forward to the pub reopening though they’re a little bit sad that it can’t reopen the way it used to be open.
We shut in late March and we fairly quickly reinvented the business into a takeaway service. We had our cook come in and she offered the full menu which our locals were used to getting when they dined with us. It kept us going and kept the business alive and also serviced our community. While we have been closed and offering a takeaway service they’ve been very supportive of our business, and we’re very grateful for that.
Buying the pub
WE bought the pub a year and a half ago and we’ve had a really successful 15 months or so prior to COVID. We’d never been publicans before, never owned a pub, but over the course of a year we really decided that we’d give this a crack and be brave, and we haven’t looked back.
We’ve just really enjoyed the people, the challenges, and we’re very satisfied and honoured to be custodians of this beautiful building for a little while. I’m from Melbourne and Danny and Leah are from Swan Hill. They’re partners – in life. We all live in the pub.Leah and I grew up in Mitcham and we became friends at high school and we’ve remained friends ever since. She moved up here when she was in her early twenties and I’ve been coming to visit her for the 20 or so years after that.
One day Leah and Danny mentioned to me, “Next time you come up we’ll take you to this pub called Mystic Park Hotel and apparently it’s for sale”. So we sat down and had a meal here. We were charmed by the building and we were excited by the opportunity to work together because we thought we’d work well together – and we do. It was a “What if?” that turned into a “Why not?” – why not see if we can do it? And of course things had to play out and then we got serious about it. We organised ourselves so we could purchase it and we got ourselves skilled up in the areas of owning a pub.
New publicans
THERE was such a steep learning curve right at the beginning. Bob Flett, the previous owner, did a very thorough handover and the procedures that he had in place for the pub were really good procedures but were quite demanding. So it was challenging and it was physically exhausting, but it was a smooth handover.
Having three publicans we share the job, so it’s not as if one person is doing everything. And having three people putting in and running the business has contributed to its success. Also the employees that worked at the pub before we bought it have been very supportive and have stayed on.
The move
I’M a teacher, I used to be a music teacher. Danny still works for Graincorp. Leah works with early childhood and families in Swan Hill. They still maintain their jobs and I just work full time here.
I moved up from Melbourne. I’d lived in the country before but this certainly wasn’t on my agenda – for 25 years travelling up to Swan Hill to visit Leah I had passed the Mystic Park Hotel sign on the freeway never even noticing it before.
I suppose for me moving here offered a different way of life personally – just to have the space. And also to be able to feel proud about a business. I’ve never owned a business before.
I love the open space and the weather. I suppose I just love the outdoors, and up here you can be outdoors more I think than when you’re in Melbourne.
The hotel
THIS pub that stands here was built in 1937. It’s art deco. It was the second Mystic Park Hotel of the area.
The first Mystic Park Hotel was on the Cobb & Co road, which is roughly where the highway is, and that was built in 1897. Then it was brought back to the train line when the train lines were built. From there it actually got demolished because it wasn’t big enough.
We’ve got a picture of both pubs on the wall. There’s a lot of history on our walls.
When the Mystic Park cricket and football clubs dissolved the pub became the caretakers of all of their photos. We’ve also got a photo album the previous publicans put together that visitors can ask for which holds a lot more photos and news clippings for the whole Mystic Park area. I love the history of the pub.
We’re looking at exploring John Gorton’s history a little bit more. He grew up in Mystic Park and we do have a very precious photo on our wall of him at the pub with the publican.
The pub offers a chance to build relationships within the community and the wider community that holiday up here. We take the idea of a pub, which is a public space, quite seriously. It’s a welcoming pub. Customers come in and do feel very welcome and comfortable here.
We have great relationships with the locals – the local farming community and also the holiday-goers that come up here periodically – prior to COVID of course. We’ve got to the point where they have come back for the next holiday so we’ve seen them twice and that’s a lovely feeling.
Sharing the Load
WE had a very successful ‘Sharing the Load’ campaign earlier this year, where locals were involved in contributing their time and their trucks and their hay to a community in NSW which was suffering badly from the drought. That to me personally was just a brilliant campaign, where I got to know the generosity of this community. That’s probably been the highlight of my time here. And we’re looking at doing other things like that.
Activities
WE have accommodation upstairs, which was fully refurbished by the previous publican, Bob. We’re going to be offering space on our block for self-contained caravanners – as long as they support the pub and come and say hello and tell us their stories, which we love. We love all the stories that come into the pub.
We’ve got a short film being filmed here in the coming weeks, a drama – I don’t know the title of it but it’s just a group of young filmmakers that have scouted the area and chosen the pub for most of their scenes, as well as different areas in the Mallee region.
Murrabit Footy Club run the joker poker on a Friday night, and that really brought the community together. It’s a raffle kind of event where people buy tickets and if their ticket’s drawn out they get a chance to choose a card from our board, and if they flip over the joker they win the jackpot. The maximum won was close to two and a half grand I think, which was back around January. We support our local footy teams – not only Murrabit, but we also sponsor Quambatook and Woorinen South.
In the last couple of weeks we’ve had outdoor yoga on our property. We’ve got a Little Library, where people can come and take a book or deposit some books. That was created by the Lakes Landcare group, who collected and painted old fridges to put the books in.
Surviving the shutdown
IT was hard after not long before purchasing a business that you want to really make successful and have open for your locals to have it shut down and not be able to offer that service and connect with the community. That was disappointing but everyone’s in the same boat.
And we’re an optimistic team, we’re open to changes. We knew that we would survive – and we will. We’ll just accept any situation that’s presented to this business and make the most of it.
We can’t wait to open up and get back to normal – I think it’ll be a new normal. We’re looking forward to opening up fully in spring, hopefully, and then having a really busy summer as people get back out and about and come up from Melbourne or different places, come to the Mallee area.
