In the early 2000’s, after unsuccessfully lobbying the State Government to allow the sale of alcohol in its supermarkets, such as in other states, the two food giants - Coles and Woolworths went on a pub buying binge to access the lucrative retail liquor market. 

Their very clever plan was to target hotels with large land holdings and replace the typical pub ‘drive thru bottle shop’ with on-site mega liquor warehouses (Dan Murphy’s and First Choice) plus the 3 ‘off premises’ retail shops allowed per hotel. 

Simultaneously gambling reforms in the state capped the total number of poker machines available per region, while also placing a value on the operating authorities for ‘Pokie’ Machines and limiting it to a maximum of 40 per Hotel.  
These two factors combined with excellent economic times and abundant credit in the pre GFC period had people spending like, well drunken sailors, to buy pubs. Simply the maths made ridiculous sense. If you could get a hotel licence and the operating authorities approved (after construction) the hotel in the right catchment was worth 2-3 times its standard hard costs.  

The industry soon determined that retro fitting old buildings were almost impossible to gain a licence and costlier, but ‘greenfield’ sites with a growing population allowed the demonstration of need and were in hot demand by property developers. After completing one with huge success they were high on our acquisition target list so when an approved lakeside coastal site came to market we went off like a frog in a sock to get it. While the devil is always in the detail, we sub-divided into a number of parcels for residential development and the Bargara Lakes Hotel was opened in 2005.