Red Brick Hotel

There are some interesting hotels around Brisbane town. Drinking at a hotel was quite a different thing a couple of decades ago. Think of some of the changes that have occurred in that time: no smoking rules introduced; introduction of poker machines; breathalysers brought in to reduce drink driving; increased trading hours; full Sunday trading; women allowed in public bars. That's right - it was only as recently as the sixties (OK, OK - it seems recent to me!) that women were not allowed in the public bar of a hotel - they were restricted to the lounge bar only. All of that came to a head one day when a couple of women chained themselves to the foot rail of the public bar at one of Brisbane's grand old pubs, the Regatta Hotel on Coronation Drive at Toowong. Here's a photo of another grand old pub, Burke's Hotel in Annerley Rd at South Brisbane, taken around 1929.

(Photo: State Library of Queensland and John Oxley Library; #1864)

The hotel has had a couple of changes since it was erected in 1890. I first knew it in one of its earlier guises, the Red Brick Hotel. And not because I drank there - I don't think that I have even been inside. Back in my footballing days, there was a team from this hotel in the rugby competition I was involved in, and there wasn't a meaner or uglier group of rugby players anywhere - I just hope none of them are reading this. :-) I wasn't a fast runner then, and I'm even slower now!
(Photo: © 2009 the foto fanatic)

It doesn't matter now how mean or ugly they were; they must have supported the hotel well enough because it is still standing at 83 Annerley Rd, just up from the Mater Hospital. It may now have reverted to its original name, and I can't provide any current information on their sporting prowess. The hotel itself has changed somewhat - the red brick from which it took its name during my rugby years has been rendered over, and the magnificent balconies have been removed. The roof line still looks like something from an old Hitchcock movie, though.

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