The Hotel Westwood Is For Sale

Footscray's Hotel Westwood is up for sale, with its owners who run the Cherry Bar in Melbourne’s CBD following the advice to “stay in your lane”.

In March 2019, The Reverence Hotel closed its doors. Cherry Bar’s James Young and his partners swept in, reviving it as the Hotel Westwood in November 2020.

After the previous owners of The Reverence Hotel operated on a month-to-month basis, bringing uncertainty to the venue, Young’s goal was to host live music seven days a week. While the new owners had the best intentions, their lack of experience running a venue that also served meals wound up being their downfall.

Young recently told the Sydney Morning Herald: “There’s 21 years left on the lease. There’s no risk of it being sold to a developer.” 

So, luckily, Hotel Westwood won’t be turned into more apartments and will remain a music venue.

Young ran out of money during the Covid-19 pandemic trying to keep the venue afloat and make repairs to the kitchen, he said to the publication. He’s out of gas. 

“We have decided to sell our Hotel Westwood business and we thought you may like to buy it,” Cherry Bar owners wrote on Facebook yesterday (31 May).

“After four years in fabulous Footscray we have learnt a valuable lesson. Stay in your Lane.”

They continued, “We understand live music and late night dive bars, but we are not food experts. We did build the best sounding live music Room in Australia, but... due to the Pandemic we ran out of money and never finished our Kitchen, so we were running a glorious pub as a fantastic live music venue where frustratingly for our punters you could never get a spag bog, parma, fish & chips or arancini ball...

“So Hotel Westwood represents a brilliant opportunity for a someone who knows about food and loves live music to establish a successful hospitality business in the bustling New West.”

Would-be business owners can find out more about the Hotel Westwood’s lease length, rent costs, and go about booking a private inspection here.

“For the right Team this is the opportunity of a lifetime to take over a 22-year Lease and an established business in Melbourne's new heart for under $300 000. Wow.”