AN HISTORIC Proserpine pub has reopened just in time for Christmas and is looking forward to its Grand Opening, later this month.
The Palace Hotel was bought by entrepreneur and developer Rick Shelley, in December 2022.
Mr Shelley has spent the past two years painstakingly refurbishing the Proserpine landmark to return it to its former glory, after the building was wiped out by Cyclone Debbie, in 2017.
It has undergone a complete rebuild, with new timbre work in the roof system brought up to current cyclone and engineering standards.
The Palace Hotel finally opened its doors last Tuesday (November 26) and is enjoying bumper crowds in both the bar and bistro restaurant.
The hotel also has 23 self-contained en suite rooms upstairs, as well as two disabled rooms, all refurbished to a high standard and accessed by an elevator.
“We are now taking accommodation bookings , with all rooms now complete,” Mr Shelley said, adding the average room cost was $220 per night.
“We’ve had good numbers so far in the bar – it’s been a very, very busy week. We had a full house all day Saturday.
“And the restaurant’s been exceptionally busy and we’ve been receiving very positive feedback from customers.
“Our most popular premium cuts have been our signature Wagu steak and the T-bone steak, both 400g. They’ve been extremely popular.”
The restaurant serves all kinds of meat dishes, as well as seafood and pasta, while the bar offers pizzas and traditional bar meals.
The Grand Opening is due to take place on Friday, December 20, with live music and plenty going on.
“The pokie room and the bottle shop will be up and running in late December,” said Mr Shelley, who already owns and runs three venues at the Mackay Marina – a steakhouse, a sports bar and a takeaway restaurant.”
The Palace Hotel has a long and illustrious history in Proserpine.
It began as a two-storey timber building constructed by August Schumake more than 100 years ago.
Licenses to the hotel changed hands several times during the first few years, before Henry (Harry) Deicke took out a lease, in 1903, and then bought the property, in 1907.
Still owned by Mr Deicke, the Palace Hotel was extended and altered in 1939 to include additional accommodation facilities to cater for escalating demand, due to the success of the sugar cane industry.
Mrs OM Jones took over the hotel, in the 1950s, and ran it until 1963; it then went on to have two more owners before it was bought by Jim Bowman, in 1977.
The Faust family purchased the building, in 1995, and transformed the dining area and then later added the TAB section to the hotel.
They sold it to Paul McEnroe, in 2004, who remodelled the building significantly.
More recently, it was taken over by Thomas and Audrey Dunne, in 2006, who remodelled the hotel and renamed it O’Duinn’s Irish Pub.
Unfortunately, the pub was destroyed 11 years later, by Tropical Cyclone Debbie, in March 2017, and it has been closed to the public ever since then.
That is, until now, and the fate of the pub is definitely looking up, under Mr Shelley’s ownership and stewardship.
