Hotel Westwood – a pub and live music venue in Naarm/Melbourne, formerly known as the Reverence Hotel (before that too shut in 2019) – has gone up for sale.
In a statement shared on social media, co-owner James Young said his and his team’s choice to sell the venue isn’t owed to any financial struggles or inability to continue running it, but rather its nature as a pub with a functioning kitchen. “After four years in fabulous Footscray we have learnt a valuable lesson,” Young wrote. “Stay in your Lane.
“We understand live music and late night dive bars, but we are not food experts. We did build the best sounding live music Room in Australia, but… due to the Pandemic we ran out of money and never finished our Kitchen, so we were running a glorious pub as a fantastic live music venue where frustratingly for our punters you could never get a spag bog, parma, fish [and] chips or arancini ball…
“So Hotel Westwood represents a brilliant opportunity for a someone who knows about food and loves live music to establish a successful hospitality business in the bustling New West.”
According to Young’s statement, Hotel Westwood is operating on a 22-year lease at 28 Napier Street in Footscray, with an asking price of “under $300,000” (at the time of writing, it’s listed for $275,000). Young stressed that this sale would not affect his team’s other venue, the Cherry Bar, noting: “We’ve got plenty left in the tank and are very excited about the future of Cherry Bar and the Melbourne music scene.”
Since the bandroom at Hotel Westwood first opened in February of 2021, notable acts to perform there have included Children Collide, The Delta Riggs, Mia Dyson, Didirri and Mudhoney.