The Gates Hotel

Sometimes all you feel like is “good honest pub grub” and a beer.

David and he’s wife Allison have owned The Gates Hotel since March 2008. Not a hard name to remember, the pub sits right next to the gates at Adamstown train station.

As a customer of Global Brands Liquor David explains, “Mary is my rep, I buy most of my products from her…all our spirits and our pre-mix”.

“Mary is a good rep, when I first came to Newcastle in 2008 no-one would go near us, obviously a young couple starting in a business and no-one would touch us. Mary came straight out and signed us up with Doyle’s (who she worked for before moving to GBL) and we never looked back.

“We have stayed with her the whole time, we look after her and she looks after us. Newcastle is one of those towns where you have to be loyal to who you’re with”.

Is there much competition amongst other pubs in the area?

“There is always enough to go around, like Troy from The Blackbutt if he needs beer gas or kegs or whatever, we help each other out. The industry is pretty good, Newcastle AHA are pretty strong, they are a good bunch.

“There are the big groups coming in now which they are buying numbers of pubs which is a bit of a down turn I think for me, there aren’t many solo publicans left anymore, so you have the big boys coming in buying pubs. The hardest thing, for little pubs like me, I don’t get the buying power these other guys get which is a real negative…. you just can’t compete, but it is what it is”.

What are your more popular beers?

“I’m a main stream beer hotel, there is a market for craft beer, but a suburban pub probably isn’t it. We have the Coopers like we always have and the 50 Lashes, but from there we just focus on main stream beers, which works well for us”.

Has it been easy dealing with Global Brands Liquor?

Oh yeah 100%, very easy. Like a prime example was on Tuesday afternoon I rang [Mary] about 4:30pm and I had just ran out of Coopers and delivery wasn’t coming until the Wednesday. I said to Mary ‘is someone coming past?’  and she said ‘yep Sabian is about to finish’, and he dropped it off 25 minutes later.

“All the staff are good, like the delivery guys, a prime example today when I was busy at lunch time. He rang me at about 1pm and said ‘you probably don’t want to see me now?’ and I said ‘no, after 2pm would be great’ and he said ‘no worries I’ll keep doing another run and I’ll see you after 2pm’.