Famed late-night watering hole Minskys sold for $39m

The famed Minskys pub in Cremorne, known for its late-night singing with piano man John Watson, has been sold for $39 million to the pub and retail investors the Karellas family in conjunction with the pub operator Mitchell Waugh.

Redcape Hotel group, now under the MA Hotel Group banner, put the two-storey property up for sale in late March to take advantage of the booming pub sector. The 3,344 square metre site comes with 25 poker machines, a separate bottle shop and strata title offices from which Redcape used to operate.

It is the first time in two decades the popular pub, with its 4am licence, was offered for sale. The sale also comes at a time when close to $1.5 billion worth of pubs have changed hands over the past year.

Another large pub, the Strathfield, is being sold by the private Whelan family, with price expectations of more than $90 million.

For Mitchell Waugh and his Public House Management Group, who is likely to operate the pub on behalf of the Karellas family, it is a return to Sydney’s lower north shore, having sold the Buena pub in adjoining Mosman in 2018 to focus on his properties in the east – the Royal Hotel Paddington, The Toxteth and Marrickville Ritz.

The Karellas family did not comment on the sale.

Redcape chief executive Dan Brady said the group recognised the strong demand for quality hotel assets in the market.

“The opportunity for an incoming operator/investor to further optimise a large licence footprint and have a more proactive entertainment lead business plan would see tremendous value-add that given our scale we could not realise,” Brady said.

Advising Redcape were JLL hotels & hospitality group managing director John Musca, senior vice-president Ben McDonald and JLL metropolitan sales & investments director Gordon McFadyen, who said the listing generated 65 enquiries from a wide-ranging domestic buyer pool.