DESIGN & BUILD
THRILLING
THREE-IN-ONE AUSTRALIAN VENUE CO HAS RELAUNCHED STATE OF GRACE IN MELBOURNE’S CBD. CRAIG HAWTIN-BUTCHER REVEALS HOW THIS THREE-VENUES-IN-ONE SPACE IS BOUND TOGETHER OPERATIONALLY AND AESTHETICALLY.
30 | APRIL 2019 AUSTRALIAN HOTELIER
“T
heme venues are the future, they really are.” That’s the verdict of Australian Venue Co’s Jeremy Ferguson. Ferguson is the operator’s Divisional Area Manager and responsible for State of Grace, AVC’s relaunched venue in Melbourne’s CBD. “They attract a different type of clientele,” says Ferguson. “Particularly with social media these days, everyone posting, photographing and Tweeting everything, it makes a good thing for them to really play on.” The venue opened in November last year, but Ferguson admits the new venue is a little outside AVC’s comfort zone. “It’s very much a standalone venue for us,” says Ferguson. “We do have a couple of venues where these sorts of themes are touched, but we’re into traditional hotels. It is a little bit outside what we’re used to.” “Definitely having a theme attached is a great idea,” says Ferguson. “It does give the venue a lot of hype. So having the State of Grace, which has such a theme attached to it, is a very, very strong selling point. We’re seeing
that flow on to the type of clientele we attract, the amount of money that gets spent and also the function crowd it attracts.”
CHANGE OF PACE Not only that, the venue is a very different departure from Australian Venue Co’s more traditionally-minded pub spaces, in many ways. “The State of Grace is different from our other venues in that it has a restaurant license attached to it,” says Ferguson. “Therefore we have to offer 75% seats to our patrons. So a big part of what we offer is around food and we offer full table service throughout. Our other venues are standard pubs – walk in, grab yourself a table, order at the bar, sit down and enjoy a meal.” The unusual venue is a result of AVC’s acquisition of the Publican Group. “State of Grace was originally on Collins St and closed down approximately two years ago,” says Ferguson. “The owner of that was the Publican Group. We bought the Publican Group out but in the process of purchasing that group, they were already planning to relaunch the State of Grace in King Street. A part of the deal we
