Duxton Pubs has unveiled a major renovation for The Saracen’s Head Hotel in Adelaide, giving the historic CBD pub a refined makeover with modern touches.
Although the group made some small changes to reopen the pub following its acquisition in 2021, Mark Condi, Duxton Pubs CEO, told Australian Hotelier a more detailed update was required to expand the pub’s reach, leading the group to undertake its first major renovation.
“Where [The Saracen’s Head Hotel] is located on Carrington Street is very much a legal district, or a legal part of the CBD with a lot of legal firms along the street, so naturally on a weekend it does quieten down a lot. What we are trying to do, is create a bit of a destination.”
Dating back to 1873, the refurbishment has retained the pub’s rich heritage while reinvigorating the dining and bar spaces and enhancing the gaming offer, including a brand-new gaming room equipped with 20 gaming machines.
“The pub is a really beautiful layout in what is a great area of the CBD. The gaming room I believe we have lifted to a level that would be one of the premier gaming rooms in South Australia with quality fixtures and finishings,” Condi explained.
Another key focus of the renovation was updating the food and beverage offering, and with the addition of a Yoder smoker in the beer garden, the food menu now combines two key elements – smokehouse dining and pub classics.
“Taking that space back for gaming allowed us to reorganise completely the food and beverage offerings of the venue, and that led us to create booths and more comfortable seating and allowed us to activate the outdoor space and create the smokehouse concept.
“The smoker is now sitting outdoors and that’s allowed us to create a really cool menu for functions and on weekends, with things like briskets, ribs, smoked sausage and chicken wings. We’ve created a really cool smokehouse look and feel,” Condi added.
The layout of the main restaurant has also been refreshed to flow seamlessly into the beer garden, and will continue to serve classic pub fare including burgers, vegan chilli con carne, steak frites and four types of schnitzel.
Entering a new era
The renovation was led by Duxton Pubs’ in-house design team, who also designed Bar 1854 which recently launched at the Cremorne Hotel, giving the pub a facelift while honouring its rich history.
“We have our own internal team, interior designer and projects team, who worked with our other operations team to develop their concepts. I’m really pleased how that’s come about – they’re a really good, young team,” Condi explained.
“We haven’t touched anything outdoors, so the pub itself – the heritage look and feel – is exactly the same. We made a point to ensure that any works internally remained pretty much the same, so for the food and beverage design we reused a lot of the old furniture and booths but repurposed them, to keep the look and feel of the place.”
Throughout the renovation the pub never closed entirely, but the complete reopening of the transformed space has been welcomed by the local community.
“Naturally, through any sort of renovation our customers are generally quite excited about what’s coming, but the feedback has been amazing. We’ve certainly seen that just in terms of the patronage in the last week since we’ve opened.”
Speaking about his hopes to create a weekend destination, Condi added: “It’s still early days, but certainly the look and feel of the place is there, and last weekend’s numbers speak volumes to that strategy. There’s a long way to go still, don’t get me wrong, but I’m very confident that it will deliver what we hope it will.”