As the Alabama 3 made abundantly clear in the world’s finest ever Country ‘n’ Western, pro-Communism, techno banger, Mao Tse Tung Said: “Change must come through the barrel of a gun.” And so it is for Melbourne icon, the GB (or Great Britain Hotel if we’re being formal)*. The Church Street pub will cease to be – at least in its current – when its current owners hand over the keys to the venue they’ve run for 18 years.
There’s no gun involved, of course. And people who know, love and frequent the venue have been aware that this day has been on the cards for some time, with various rumours spreading at different times that the lease was about to end, the GB was to be flattened for flats, and much else, only for news to come out that an extension had been won and all was well with the world.
In fact, late last year, GB lovers rejoiced at word that it would continue under Chris and Penny Hodges' team for another three years. This time, however, it is the rumour of good news that has proved false, with the barrel of the gun taking the shape of a steep hike in rent that has forced Chris to accept that their time is up. In the middle of the year, new owners The Open Pub Company, which runs a number of venues around Melbourne including the Portland Hotel, will take over.
“It is what it is,” says Chris. “I’ve had 18 amazing years so I’d be a pretty mean old man if I was bitter.”
Instead, there are plans for many celebrations, which are certain to be supported by the local craft beer community, not least Mountain Goat and Little Creatures. The GB was the first place a Goat beer – Hightail – ever poured on tap and the first place a Little Creatures beer poured on the East Coast too. Both the taps in question have never poured anything else since. Little surprise, then, that one of the first people to contact The Crafty Pint about the impending closure was Creatures' Victorian rep or that Goat co-founder Dave Bonighton posted a lengthy and fond message on Facebook when news broke last week, telling us how thankful he and co-founder Cam Hines were at how supportive Chris was “way back in 1997, and how open he was to something different – craft beer.”
Watch a short film about Mountain Goat shot at the GB and reflecting on their relationship with the venue here.
The GB was a venue that was supporting craft beer before it was even really a thing. Yet it was never one to make a song and dance about being a craft beer bar, mainly because it was more than that: a locals-and-live-music-supporting pub that has grown organically over the past 18 years for which the quality of the beer on tap was just a small part of a greater whole. To The Crafty Pint, it always felt as though it was more a living, breathing entity than a venue, one whose appearance and atmosphere had evolved naturally, free of any great grand design, and in which everything attached to a wall, sat on a shelf or tucked in a cranny, every scuff on a wall or tear in a seat had a story to tell, even if you might not be able to find anyone who could remember the story – or at least its origin and whether it was actually being told exactly as it transpired.
There are fewer and fewer such places left these days and it can only be hoped – as Chris does – that the new owners will recognise why and for what the GB is loved, and that little changes when the ownership does.
“It’s been inevitable,” he says. “The freehold changed a couple of years ago so I knew it was going to come.”
Looking back to the start, he says the pub had formerly been a famous live music venue that, when he and his business partner moved in 18 years ago, had become rundown. They fitted it out with its “outlandish” decor and furniture, a move that turned out to be “the right thing at the right time”. Since then, the approach has been to let it evolve and only “make changes to stay the same”.
For now, Chris and Penny are focusing on their other venue, Eydie’s, and have started the hunt for a new venue, maybe in Richmond, maybe elsewhere, while bar manager Steven Gill (above) lines up the farewell celebrations. For everyone else, you’ve got around 170 days and counting to call in for a final drink or three or, if you’ve never called in before, to see why the GB matters to so many people.
The GB is at 447 Church Street, Richmond.
*There was a rather tenuous intro linking the Alabama 3 track to what we’d always casually (lazily?) assumed was Chairman Mao on the wall of the GB. It’s been brought to our notice that it’s actually this Indian chap, which kind of makes the intro a bit weird – and much that follows – but it’s a cool track so, um, sorry and we stand corrected.
