North Bourke Pub Grand Opening

Former Bourkeite Sarge Jones and his son Kane Jones fitting out the new bar with Northy Publican Tracey Hegarty (centre). Photo TWH

If all goes according to plan, the North Bourke Pub is set to open this Friday, the 30th of October, just in time for the long weekend.

After roughly 15 months of construction, dealing with delays due to Covid and everything else, the Northy pub is finally taking shape.

The pub will have an extensive drink menu with 10 beer taps, wine, and a range of cocktails and mocktails to wash down the food from the restaurant.

“The bar benchtops we have sourced from Kidman camp, thanks to the late Peter Simmonds and Tracey Simmonds, with the help of their son Clay, and Ollie Gordon installed it and Paddy Poole painted the finish,” Publican Tracey Hegarty said, busy laying down plants in the beer garden.

“For entertainment, we will have a pool table and a jukebox, and we will also have a lovely, sunny beer garden out the back, and when we get up and running, we hope to have live music when we can.

“There will be a lounge area for the ladies to encourage after-dinner drinks; we will have a cocktail and mocktail menu, and happy hour will be from 5 – 6 Monday to Friday.”

The cocktail menu includes refreshing drinks for all hours of the day and night, including mojitos, Aperol Spritzes, Margaritas and Espresso martinis, to name a few.

“In terms of food,” Tracey continued, “we will have a start-up menu to get us started, and then as we go, and our chef arrives from Melbourne next week (our sous-chef is already here), we will build on it, and we will also have chef specials to choose from.

“The menu will be classic pub food with an oriental twist built on fresh produce, and we will have roasts and all-day pizzas on Sundays.”

The start-up menu will include dishes like salt and pepper squid, arancini balls, buffalo wings and Peking duck spring rolls for starters, schnitzel, salmon and Asian-style pork belly for mains, a wide range of steaks from the grill and dessert.

“But we also want to support Kerry from the Northy Shop next door; she offers a completely different menu, and we are okay if people wants to eat their food from there in the pub.

“We are all good on the staff front; we have some great local people who will be working behind the bar, and we will have a bus to take you to and from the premises, but right now, we are still looking for a bus driver.

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