One of the oldest hotels in Brisbane, with a history stretching back more than 100 years, has been given a new lease of life and a new name, highlighting the crucial role the hotel and where it stands played in Queensland’s colourful past.
The Pinkenba Hotel was built in 1910 by Scottish immigrant Ellen Bain in the heart of Brisbane’s then thriving port area where, among other things, Australian soldiers began their journeys to three wars.
Recently, known as simply The Pink, the hotel has been renamed Trade Coast Hotel, which refers to the entire region which bursts with history.
Roads connecting greater Brisbane to Pinkenba are in the process of being upgraded to improve accessibility to the new Brisbane International Cruise Terminal at nearby Luggage Point.
It is expected that 450,000 travellers will pass through the area in a cruise season, and the Trade Coast Hotel is opening in preparation.
The hotel opens on August 6 after a total refurbishment, and boasts a new bar, bistro, Gaming and TAB facilities, three-star accommodation and Liquor Legends bottle shop. Plans for stage two will include a function centre, micro-brewery and four-star accommodation.
General Manager Chris Sartori said that a lot of thought has gone into the hotel’s new look and name acknowledging the ongoing support from the local region while celebrating the important role Pinkenba played in Queensland’s colonial past, immigration, trade, war departures, war defences, airport services and now, cruising hub.
A unique wall of Pinkenba’s pictorial past in the hotel’s public bar salutes the area’s rich past, including the stirring story of Ellen Bain, who stepped from the immigration ship Durham at the Pinkenba wharves in 1881, aged 22, with her new baby John in her arms.
At the turn of the century she set her sights on building a hotel at Pinkenba and for 10 years was forced to battle the odds to get permission to switch the liquor licence from the Myrtle Hotel in nearby Myrtletown to Pinkenba.
The hotel’s Myrtle’s Bistro has been specially named in keeping with its links to the past when Boggy Creek was renamed Myrtletown in 1928 for the lemon myrtle groves.
A Courier Mail report in 1928, under the headline “Fertile Myrtletown” referred to it as “the home of the cauliflower” as well as producing large quantities of bananas, tomatoes, beans, cabbages and grapes.
Welcoming the Trade Coast Hotel to the ever expanding TradeCoast region is timely, and more importantly, will continue to be the heart of the thriving port area, as it was when it first opened in Pinkenba in 1910.
Instagram @tradecoast_hotel Facebook @tradecoasthotel Web www.tradecoasthotel.com.au
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