Raise a glass

The Captain Cook before its closure.

It has been a tumultuous 12 months in the Paddington pub market, with several of the suburb’s best-known heritage hotels changing hands or having a change of fortune.

Little is yet known about the intentions of the incoming owners of The Unicorn, on Oxford St at Hopewell St, but it is expected that Paddo’s only rock ’n’ roll hotel will head more mainstream when it reopens in early 2025 after a refresh.

The pub has been operated by the Mary’s Group, best known for its burger outlets, for nine years. Following its sale to JDA Hotels, the pub’s doors shut on August 31, with the outgoing managers saying the venue would be closed for the rest of the year.

“There is something so humbling in knowing that this pub was there before us and will certainly outlive us, too,” the Mary’s team said on Instagram as their tenure ended. “We want to welcome and wish the good folks at JDA Hotels all the luck and success as they take up the reins of this mythical beast.

“We believe there is a little facelift planned and that these wonderful doors will be opening once again in early 2025. We can’t wait to see their reimagining of this beautiful pub.”

JDA Hotels didn’t answer Local Paddo’s enquiries, but director John Feros told Broadsheet that locals shouldn’t fear the change.

The Rose Shamrock and Thistle before it became El Primo Sanchez.

“Our aim is to keep that really cool pub vibe going,” Feros said. “We will be putting some money into it, to freshen it up. But our aim is to maintain what it was, and has been, for so long: a cool, vibrant pub with pub food, a pool table, entertainment. When I was young, the Fringe Bar was my go-to, so for me it’s a bit of an iconic place.”

Also undergoing a serious change will be the Captain Cook Hotel on the corner of Moore Park Rd and Flinders St. In a weird development, the 110-year-old pub was bought in 2022 for $13m, then sold again in July 2024 for $6.6m. The huge drop in price is ascribed to the decision of the vendor, the pokie-rich Mathieson family, to strip the venue of its gaming machines.

The Captain Cook’s 15 poker machines were excluded from the sale, and will be relocated to the Mathieson’s other hotels, which are scattered across Australia. Good riddance.

It is believed the pub will close and be reborn as a 22-room hostel. It is not known who the new owner is but selling agent Shannan Whitney of BresicWhitney said the pub was bought as an “accommodation play. The pub is closing,” Whitney told The Australian Financial Review.

One pub not closing is the Light Brigade, on Oxford St, Woollahra, bought by Sydney pub baron Arthur Laundy in June. The imposing 1880s institution had been run for 10 years by another pub family, the Bayfields. The Laundys sounded excited when announcing the purchase.

“We’re looking forward to adding the Light Brigade to our other eastern suburbs properties, like the Watsons Bay, Bells and Woolloomooloo Bay hotels,” said Laundy’s son, Stu Laundy, in a statement when the sale went through.

“A few generations ago, our family owned the Woollahra Hotel and my father played rugby down at Easts.”

Meanwhile, the fate of two other favourite Paddo hotels remains in the balance.

The NSW Land and Environment Court is set to deliver its decision on the future of the 1850-built Village Inn on Glenmore Rd within the next three months. The lovely property was bought by fashion brand Alemais to be converted into a shop, a move that infuriated locals and the wider Sydney community.

The Unicorn, which will reopen in the new year.

The conversion was denied by Woollahra Council, after a deluge of community complaints. Among those to speak at an August court hearing was the Paddington Society, which vigorously opposed the change. We eagerly await the judgment.

The apparently ill-fated 1939-built Rose, Shamrock & Thistle, relaunched in 2023 as Mexican bar El Primo Sanchez, has also been put back on the market after owner Jon Adgemis’s Public Hospitality Group ran into serious financial difficulties.

The new bar, while brilliantly executed, has been plagued by the troubles of its owners. Who knows what will happen to it next.