Torquay Hotel completes summer-ready overhaul

THE Torquay Hotel has completed a major revamp ahead of what is expected to be a huge summer on the Surf Coast.

Renovations to the award-winning venue’s beer garden are now complete, priming the pub for the crowds set to arrive over New Year and into 2026.

The Surf Coast Times was given an exclusive at the site last week, ahead of its re-opening to the public.

The new beer garden features a built-in stage for live music, three bars, modern restrooms, a wood-fired pizza kitchen and a brand-new high technology sound system. The redevelopment also includes a new freestanding building crafted from precast concrete, natural stone and steel.

 

Torquay Hotel owner Joel Taylor said reopening in time for peak season was a huge boost to the local business.

“I am really happy with it, particularly seeing it come together after what has been a really long process.

“We hope it’s a big boost for the community. I’ve always wanted to really bring the Torquay Hotel up to a high hospitality standard and we feel we’ve achieved some of that with the restaurant and with the high quality of music.

“We feel our facilities in the beer garden were lacking, but this brings it up to something that the people of the Surf Coast region really want.”

 

A new private entrance to the beer garden has also been introduced, along with a dedicated ticket booth for live music events, designed to ease congestion across the venue.

“Now we’ve got this dedicated entry window and ticket point,” Mr Taylor said.

“Each bar in the beer garden is now 50 per cent bigger than what we had before. We will be able to fit about 14 bartenders at one time.

“Amenities-wise, we used to have six toilets, and now we have 16, including two fully accessible bathrooms.

“Across the board, it’s a huge improvement from what we had.”

A second stage of construction is planned to begin after Easter next year, with the main focus on adding a roof to the freestanding building to improve weather protection.

 

“It sits about 7m high, and it’ll be a nice architecturally designed roof which has this curve shape to let light in through the sides but shelter you when its stinking hot or really wet,” Mr Taylor said.

“We also plan on putting in central heating bar down the sides. It won’t be fully weather tight, but it will keep the warmth in when we need it in winter.

“We plan on opening all of that late winter [or] spring 2026.”