Grand dame of Brisbane pubs reopens – and it’s all change out back

Don’t worry, the Grand View Hotel is still the Grand View Hotel.

You might wonder what’s become of this bayside icon as you drive the requisite 45 minutes from the CBD down Old Cleveland Road to witness its emergence from a 16-month refurbishment.

For every successful pub do-over, there are 10 bad ones. But surely not the two-storey “Grandy” – one of the oldest hotels in Queensland in continuous use – with its distinctive brick and timber facade, lace iron balustrades and corrugated iron roof?

Pull up outside the pub on North Street, and you’d be forgiven for wondering whether it’s been refurbished at all.

Out front, little has changed: the familiar mustard-yellow paint job remains, and the palm trees still line the footpath. Step off the street into Dr Bob’s public bar, and you might encounter the same rusted-on regulars.

“You could draw a line through the middle of the pub,” venue manager Richard Harrison says. “The front bar, gaming room and TAB are one sort of pub. And then out here, it’s a big food and beverage pub.”

Harrison is sitting beneath an expansive, vertiginous pergola out the back of the Grand View. It’s a breezy open-air space painted white and decked out with ceiling fans and modern pale timber furniture. Framed by towering trees – with the North Stradbroke Island ferry’s superstructure poking through the foliage in the distance – it’s a lovely spot for a frothy or two.

At one end is a standalone kitchen that features a pizza oven and a sizeable Josper set-up comprising a rotisserie and grill.

The clever treatment more or less leaves the existing heritage-listed structure completely intact, though construction paused when a mid-19th-century well was uncovered in the kitchen. (It is now enclosed in glass, lit at night, and serves as an eye-catching feature.)

The owner, Kickon Group, has form with this sort of project. It operates city venues such as the Plough Inn at South Bank and the Osbourne in Fortitude Valley, and oversaw the 2022 reopening of the Continental Hotel in regional Sorrento, Victoria.

“We’re not trying to make the Plough,” Harrison says. “We’re not trying to make the Osbourne. This is the Grand View. So if it needs a different offering, we’ll cater to that. It’s a credit to Craig Shearer, our CEO and founder. He’s so big on the venue’s personality, and catering to each venue’s needs.

“It makes it so much more enjoyable and rewarding to be part of when you and the staff are shaping what you do for the locals.”

To eat, expect the typical array of pub classics given an upmarket lick via the flames of the pizza oven, and the rotisserie and grill.

For seafood, there’s sesame-crusted squid with wasabi aioli and fresh lemon; Moreton Bay bug rolls with cress, fresh lemon and a Marie Rose sauce; a one-kilogram mussel pot with your choice of sauce; and local king prawns served with a cocktail sauce and fresh lemon.

There are classics such as chicken schnitzel that can be tricked up to a parmi, and there’s a burger menu that features a pumpkin and chickpea version, a steak sandwich served on Turkish bread, and a honey chipotle fried chicken burger.

Pizzas range from a classic margherita to gussied-up takes on chilli and prawn, pepperoni, and ham and pineapple.

The Josper set-up, though, is where you imagine the kitchen will see much of the action. The Grand View is billing its rotisserie as the largest in Australia, and its roasting chicken by the whole or half, with the bird also making an appearance in a roll on the burger menu.

Steaks range from a 200-gram eye fillet to a 300-gram rib fillet, and a 300-gram 120-day grain-finished sirloin.

For drinks, there are 48 beer taps across the entire venue pouring a mix of craft and big-brand beers, a tight 30-bottle wine list, and eight cocktails that split the difference between signatures and classics.

There’s still plenty more to do, Harrison says, with extra shading to be added outside alongside the pergola. But after having the doors shut for 16 months, you get the impression Kickon couldn’t wait any longer to get them open again.

“The people out here are just relentless in their love of this place,” he says. “I was standing out here moving sprinklers at 7.30am and people are walking over asking, ‘Are you open?’

“But now they’re coming in telling us they’re so happy it’s back, which in turn makes us happy, I guess.”

Open Mon-Thu 10am-10pm, Fri-Sun 10am-11.30pm.
49 North Street, Cleveland, 07 3884 3000, gvh.com.au