semi-private areas, entertainment and spaces designed to accommodate everything from a small gathering to a major function. It is a significant investment at a time when rising wages, utilities, insurance, food and beverage costs and cautious consumer spending have made hospitality an increasingly difficult equation. Leo doesn’t pretend there aren’t moments when the scale of what they have taken on hits home. “As someone that goes into business and does entrepreneurial things, for want of a better term, you have those days [where sometimes you question it all],” he says. “One day you think you’re crazy, and the next day you think you’re taking on the world. But that’s just par for the course, I think. One of our mantras was that we felt it was important to do it properly, and what that meant to us, regardless of the effort, the size, the cost, whatever the parameters were, we felt that we either did it properly or didn’t do it at all.
“It was all in or nothing.”
ng new
What emerges from their plans is a venue designed not simply around what hospitality has been, but around how Leo and Amelia believe customers now want to spend their time. At T42, Amelia says, that shift was already becoming apparent. “What we were finding towards the end of T42, and we had a huge amount of function business coming through that venue, was people were looking for an experience over and above eating and drinking,” she says. “So, when we were walking around the venues [interstate], we were thinking about what could that experience be? Just as part of that core offering, instead of something you had to go that extra step to provide.
could work on Hobart’s waterfront.
“We went and did quite a lot of research and looked at a lot of venues around most of the country and picked up a few ideas on some exciting things that were happening,” Leo says. “We got a bit of a vision for what we wanted to do. “The crux of that is that we wanted to do a little bit more than just offering food and beverage. We wanted to offer some sort of social entertainment in the venue as well.” It was the beginning of a process that would take around nine months of planning before construction even started. Billy’s remained open for as long as possible, both for the business and its staff, before building works and the arrival of a new tenant next door made closure necessary. T42 had already closed, allowing work to begin in earnest on the much larger redevelopment. And this is no cosmetic makeover. The new venue will accommodate up to 470 people, with around 290 seats across its indoor and outdoor areas. There will be a large bar, casual dining, private and
A RENDER OF THE NEW LOOK ELIZABETH ST PIER
19 Tasmanian Hospitality Review August/September Edition
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