Blood, Sweat & Beers!

Four years ago to the day, my good mate Tom rang me with a question:

“you want to buy a pub!?”

I quickly went through the range of emotions – surprise, excitement, apprehension and intrigue. I needed to know more.

Over the coming months Tom, myself and the hospitality King of Geelong, Shaun and rising real estate star Ian worked on the concept. We would buy what was then known as Gin & Co. and transform it back to its former glory – Irish Murphy’s.

Despite my business experience giving me 101 reasons to not do it, it is very hard to say no to buying a Pub, especially for me, an Irish one!

We submitted what we thought was a low-ball offer and to our great surprise, the offer was accepted. We looked at each other….

“we just bought a pub!”

Then the hard work began, built in 1855 and rarely renovated the big, old, mysterious pub had plenty of character and charm but it was doing a good job at hiding it. When we bought the pub it was dark, dingy and generally uninviting. 

I still remember the looks on peoples faces, including my wife, when we proudly showed them what we had just spent our life savings on. It was like the look you give your aunt when you get an average Christmas present, pretend to like it but the disappointment is hard to hide.

We had two whole weeks to clean, renovate, re-brand, hire staff, market the business, set up bank accounts, etc. plenty of time…..

We opened on St Patrick’s Day 2015.  

In the early days we worked hard, especially Tom & Shaun who both lived at the venue for the first 12+ months while they served all night and ran the business all day. 

Fast forward 18 long, fun, hard, entertaining & gruelling months and we had some decisions to make. 

We had just traded through our first summer and despite how much we loved the pub, not even we wanted to be in there on a glorious sunny Saturday afternoon. We needed to do something…

 “we should build a rooftop bar!”

So we did. 12 months in planning, six long months in executing and we had done it. To say this process was a roller coaster would be understating the highs and lows of this period.  More like a rocket ship that went to space and back 300 times in 6 months. We went from pure excitement as we knocked the first wall down, to hitting rock bottom as construction slowed, money ran out and we started heading into Geelong winter…. ever seen Grand Designs?

“we will call it Murphys!”

We wanted to put our own spin on the venue and let Geelong know that the venue captured the Irish Murphy’s spirit, but with a modern fun, light, friendly twist.

“we need to get this rooftop open!”

So finally, after all the delays, setbacks, challenges and roadblocks, one Friday night in mid-July 2018 we did it, we opened. If you were planning to open a rooftop bar in Geelong you would not plan for it to open mid-winter, but ironically this was the best time to open it. We knew it was going to be cold so we solved for this with high glass and a retractable roof.

“we did it.”

The rooftop was an immediate success and despite all the doubts (our own and others) all the hard work, all the sacrifice, the challenges, etc. it was all worth it. Seeing the look on our customers faces when they saw the incredible space that we had created was worth it all.

Like many other small business owners, we don’t often sit down and celebrate our success – but on Tuesday night at Crown Casino we did. We were at the Australian Hospitality Awards Night. We were nominated for 10 awards across a range of different categories.

“we won an award!”

While winning the award itself was a great reward for effort for our amazing staff, for us it was a rare opportunity to sit back, reflect and enjoy what we have created by working together.

Owning a small business is not easy. Having four business partners is not easy. Running a pub is not easy. Renovating is not easy. But, through hard work, determination, resilience and team work we got it done.

“blood, sweat and beers!”

While it has been hard work, it has been a bloody good time and I wouldn’t change a thing.

My advice – follow your dreams, work hard, expect things to go wrong but when they go right, celebrate your wins.

Cheers!