Discounted pub for aspiring owners

LOYAL: Royal Tavern owner Susan Walsh says time is the main ingredient needed to restart the business. PHOTO/GLENN TAYLOR

ASPIRING pub owners need only front with $400,000 and satisfy licensing requirements to reopen the Royal Tavern's doors in Napier.
More that 150 years old, the Caryle St tavern shut its doors in July due to falling revenue.
Colliers agent Dan Walker said he expected considerable interest in the 1.324sq m property with the asking price dropped from $700,000.
He said there were no seismic or structural-integrity issues voiced by parties interested in the property at the higher price.
Everything needed to run it as a business remains in place, including Lion Foundation pokie machines.
Owner Susan Walsh said since her husband Russell died two years ago costs had risen while patronage had not.
"When we first got Sky TV it was $300 a month and now it is $600," she said.
"All the overheads go up and the income doesn't come in."
The couple had the pub leased when Mr Walsh became sick, which their daughter Amanda took over.
"She didn't have enough time to put into the place - customers like the proprietors to be here."
Mrs Walsh said she was selling because she wanted to retire and would consider trading properties.
"There is not much land left in Napier and this has got the traffic flow, if someone wants to buy it and pull it down and put something else up."
The couple leased out the pub because both had difficulty holding a liquor licence.
She said her husband had a bookmaking conviction which prohibited him from holding a liquor licence.
"We didn't get along well with the police or the council. They wouldn't let us have a licence.
"I've got no convictions but we are very bad people, according to them.
"The police got me for being open three minutes past my time. We had a private party - a 21st - and at 10.30pm we had half an hour to get them out. "They lifted the policewoman up on their shoulders to look in the window, because they couldn't get in, and they took my licence off me."
The building was moved to the corner of Chaucer Rd and Carlyle St from the Ahuriri spit in the 19th century where it was often flooded. It was in the thick of the Napier Siege in 2009.
With six bedrooms upstairs its rating valuation is $560,000, with the land value $470,000. The L-shaped property has a substantial parking area at the rear.
"It is a good pub and has customers that are really loyal. It just needs someone that has the time to be there and talk to them, because that's what they like.
"It's an old working man's pub - there aren't many around anymore."