Blanchetown Hotel – New Life

Just 30km north of Swan Reach sits Blachetown, on the Sturt Highway.

Cindy and Adam Peters purchased the historic hotel nearly 12 months ago, joining the AHA|SA straight away, becoming a valued part of the Riverland hotels community.

“We always thought about buying our own business. We’d worked at a couple of hotels and ran a footy club, so we’re no strangers to hospitality. We used to drive up from Adelaide and stay in a shack in Blanchetown for about 8 years and we were part of the hotel’s social club. The pub was put on the market about 10 months ago, and we grabbed the opportunity,” Adam said. “My wife used to be cleaner, and she takes immense pride in keeping the place clean. When we took over, we gave the whole place a lot of elbow grease and got it sparkling again.”

“Our values are – cold beer, good service and smiles.”

As passionate locals, Adam and Cindy are passionate about supporting the community. Adam said, “We support the local bowling club, the RSL, and footy clubs in the area – all Blanchetown.”

It’s been over two years since the Murray River floods impacted locals. Reflecting on that period, Adam said,

“I’m in awe that the locals managed to get through it. The flood was a tough time for a lot of people who had their homes and land flooded. We were just getting out of COVID, then the flood happened soon after. For many it felt like – what’s next? But, we’re a resilient community, and we’re steadily seeing more people get back to the Riverland.”

Adam and Cindy have a five-year plan for the hotel, after getting new systems up and running. Adam said, “We’ve always committed to that duration in our previous venues. It works. It gives you clear goals and enough time to achieve what you want. We were fortunate to have the help of Terminus Morgan owners, Phil and Heather, support us when we took over this hotel. We were very thankful for that and represents how close our membership can be – helping each other out.”

“We put new lighting and fans out on the deck, cleaned up the front bar. We also replaced a lot of signage,” Adam said.

The hotel does face a unique challenge, amidst broader industry issues such as taxes, red tape, and cost of doing business. Adam said, “Our biggest issue is actually that there’s no caravan park within acceptable walking distance to the hotel. We used to have the BIG4 park down the hill just a few minutes away, but that’s been closed since before we opened. It’s a bit heart breaking to see tourists drive into town, back up the hill and out again because there’s not many places to stop and set up a camp for the night near our venue.

There is the Blanchetown Caravan Park, but that’s across the bridge and the hotel’s an almost 90-minute return walk. We’re the only pub in town - What we need is another caravan park closer to the pub. It would really make a difference to our trading and bringing life into the centre of the town, making sure we’re capturing those weekend travellers. We’d really like the Mid Murray Council to have a look at what can be done.”

“The Blanchetown Hotel is a quaint little pub. We love it, and so do the locals,” Adam said.