Owners of Kalbarri’s Gilgai Tavern put it on market, plan to retire after $800k on cyclone renovations

Owners of a local watering hole in Kalbarri are selling up after putting more than $700,000 into renovations after cyclone Seroja, as they hit the road to begin their journey into retirement. Anita and Keith McRae took over the Gilgai Tavern on January 12, 2008 — when they fell in love with the town of Kalbarri — and have run it for the past 16 years. Their plan was to buy the tavern, build a house and continue working in the mining industry in the Pilbara until they could semi-retire, but the husband and wife duo ended up running the business instead. “When you own a pub you can’t semi-retire and flit in and out as you please, so it meant we gave up our jobs in mining and moved up full-time to run the tavern,” Ms McRae said. “We had some difficulties finding managers to have in place so we decided to come up and run it ourselves and here we are, that’s where we’ve been ever since.” Ms McRae said her background in accounting and her husband’s qualification in carpentry made for a smooth running of the business. She handles the admin and business-related activity while Mr McRae looks after the maintenance and helps behind the bar pouring beers. Their skill set was particularly useful after cyclone Seroja caused serious damage to the building in April 2021, Ms McRae said, but it was still a challenging time for the business. “We’d only just got over the whole COVID (pandemic), and then the cyclone happened, and then trying to get rebuilding done has been quite challenging over the last few years,” she said. “The entire northern side of our building was destroyed, but the original building was still intact, so we reopened after three days even though the roof was hanging off, the ceilings had fallen inside and we had water leaking through and didn’t have lights or anything. “People in town needed to have a beer, you know.” Ms McRae said the tavern supported State Emergency Service volunteers who dispatched from across the State to help the cyclone recovery, cooking meals and serving beverages the day after the devastation. “I had heaps of food here and the SES needed to be fed so we were sloshing around in water the day after the cyclone,” she said. “My husband’s actually with the SES, so he was out helping people and I was here trying to pull food together with no electricity, but I had gas.” The Gilgai Tavern was fully refurbished 12 months later with new flooring, plumbing, wiring, lighting, painting and more. Ms McRae said they took the opportunity to renovate the whole tavern so it “looks a million bucks”, spending a total of $785,000. The word Gilgai is Kamilaroi, Wiradhuri and Aboriginal languages for small watering hole. Before the McRaes, Kalbarri Newsagency owners Greg and Simone Morgan owned the 1970s-built tavern for a few years. The tavern is now a popular live music venue in the community with two bar areas and seating for up to 200 patrons, located in the business precinct of Kalbarri.