Demise of Mount Victoria retail

December 24, 2021

Pre-pandemic, back on Saturday 26th November 2017, Nature Trail delivered one of its hiking tours around the bush tracks of Mount Victoria, having a great lunch for our group of seven at Petalura Eatery at 26 Station Street.

We all happily sat around the table below. The gourmet pies in particular were a treat and we thank Paulina for her friendly service.

Petalura botanically is a genus means dragonfly, and Petalura gigantea is the local Giant Dragonfly which is an endangered native species endemic to the Blue Mountains Region.

I recall the owners invested considerably transforming the rather dark 1880s cottage by removing interior walls and gutting out the old kitchen and renewing all the kitchen equipment in 2016 before opening in early 2013. It enabled the chef to prepare all food on site.

Kitchen spotless !

Alas, the business closed just on two years after opening due to the government’s repeated lockdown restrictions associated back-to-back with the NSW bushfire emergency declarations from the lead up to Christmas in 2019, then the rail closure due to the Katoomba landslip, then the ongoing pandemic lockdowns.

It was just too long a period for the tourism dependent business to survive by being denied tourism trade to the Mountains, like so many others.

One recalls that the chef/owner of Petalura was a strong-willed woman, and of the quirky sign at the back of the kitchen on the window that read ‘CAUTION: drama queen JUST AHEAD’ – perhaps tongue in cheek, the dragonfly?

The brave people who took over the lease of the eatery cottage mid-2020, established Moon-to-Moon, an all-vegan, ‘plant-based’ café and delicatessen during the pandemic lockdown. They offered a varied menu of starters, mains, salads and sandwiches etc.

It was initially opened for breakfast, lunch and dinner for six days week and proudly employed locals of Mount Vic. The food was wonderfully fresh, different and tasty.

However, perpetual government lockdowns sadly forced its increasing closure. In November 2020 they lost their cook.

By July 2021, government pandemic lockdown reduced their opening hours to become takeaway only and limited their menu to simpler meals like burgers, nasi goreng, nachos, and cottage pie.

Then just before government lockdown forced its owners to resort to distance-selling packets of crisps and warm Coke by pointing behind locked doors to avert a $5000 fine, it closed down that month with this poignant note on its Facebook page:

“Gladys (Berijiklian) you forgot about the people who pays extra taxes, small business owners should be prioritised and sole trader earn less then (sic) 75k a year should still get help too. SHAME ON YOU! Second day on and you can’t even keep up. It’s (sic) shows how many people are struggling. Should of done it earlier… You’re going to wait till we can’t go on anymore?”

How to destroy local business enterprise!

So this historic 1888 Blue Mountains cottage is currently up for lease yet again. Government is not helping Blue Mountains retail. It’s instead killing it by a thousand cuts of economic lockdowns. All government compensation has dried up, despite.

Not only is the cafe up for lease, but since November 2022 the landlord has the entire property up for sale – he couldn’t attract retail tenants.

One recalls the cottage was previously The Bay Tree Tea Shop and separately Pippa’s Sweet Box, a sublet on the left-hand side.

Behind on the block was the actual Bay Tree Nursery behind, having that big old bay tree out the back. Horticulturalist Bill owned and ran the nursery for some years, before deciding to unsuccessfully sell the nursery business in 2017.

In August 2019 Bill relocated the nursery 17km north next to his home in Clarence about 8km outside Lithgow. It was likely the rent was too high in Mount Vic. Then he again lost the sheds and nursery stock during the Christmas 2019 bushfires four months later.

Cruel!

A few doors down at 30 Station Street, the tiny delicatessen continues to operate. It is appropriately called Piccolo Deli, as in the ‘miniature flute’.

Piccolo Deli in 2011.

One recalls buying a takeaway chicken pie there on two separate occasions under the new owners, only to discover the meat contents was not chicken but beef, both times! Who knows?

Mount Vic’s historic 1897 sandstone Post and Telegraph Office on the highway closed in 1994, sold off by Australia Post, and has since been converted into a private residence.

In 2007, the Roads and Traffic Authority of NSW (since renamed twice) wanted to demolish it and all its adjoining buildings to make way for a four-lane highway so big trucks could race through. Local protested and managed to prevent that heritage destruction.

The current Australia franchised post office agency/newsagency next door in a far lesser structure is up for sale wanting $200K, claiming an annual return of $69K. Many will recognise it as that place on the side of the highway with the sushi sign.

No more sushi in Mount Vic soon?

In 2019, the long-established toy and hobby shop, Planes Trains and Automobiles, at 86 Great Western Highway relocated to The Gearin hotel in Katoomba, after The Gearin closed as a licensed pub in March 2019. Australian actor Jack Thompson had bought in 2006 for $4.1 million for his son Patrick to run. It had been Jack’s lifetime dream to own a pub. However, patronage proved to be poor and despite a partial restoration of the interior, Jack sold it in June 2011 for just $1,925,000, less than half of what he had paid for it.

Back in Mount Victoria, the shop at 86 Great Western Highway was once owned by Margaret Cooper, wife of George Hubbard Cooper who in 1887 had owned the 1876 built Mount Victoria Manor around the corner in Montgomery Street (below).

In 2015, hoteliers Denise and her partner Garry purchased the historic property for $1.1 million and spent over a million restoring and revitalising many parts of its interior including ten luxury ensuite guest rooms, an impressive new copper bar and a new sky-lit function space.

Our tour director recalls Denise inviting him through their restored hotel to inspect the premises for tour guests and enjoying a cup of tea.

In early 2020, the owners decided to lease the property to company Hotel Etico Australia, a registered charity behind Hotel Etico Australia providing gainful employment for people with an intellectual disability.

The Hotel Imperial has been closed for more than five years. In 2017, One Pro Blue Mountains Hotel Pty Ltd Investment Group bought it along with the adjoining motel for $2.5 million in 2017. It is set to be restored and revamped and additional chalets added in partnership with the Radisson hotel group at a cost of more than $8 million.

The Imperial’s beer garden received the afternoon sun and was particularly popular with travellers from Sydney on Sundays, particularly motor bikers

Meanwhile pleasingly, the nearby Victoria and Albert Hotel Guesthouse has recently undergone an expensive substantial revamp and continues to be operated by Mount Vic locals.

The Terraces on Station Street have been authentically renovated by Geoffrey Jones and his son. Pre-bushfires Geoff showed us through all the work he had done. The restoration of these two storey 1885 gems is just incredible including its antique appointments.

This was the village’s original Bank of New South Wales. On the left used to be an antiques/bookshop.

Regrettably Geoff passed away recently. The property remains in his family and is divided into two holiday lets with sympathetic private extensions at the rear, under the name The Old Bank House.

Diaz-Stein The Gallery at 28 Station Street is still there and trading. McKeown’s Emporium is still there in Station Street, as is Jennifer Marie’s Psychic Emporium on the highway is still there. The creative art gift shop of Kara Cooper’s Mount Vic and Me is still there. It used to be a French-inspired quality homewares shop called Victorious Interiors owned by Gaile Donoghue from July 2016 to 23rd June 2019.

Gaile didn’t have a long commute, since he home was the cottage next door.

Back down the highway a bit on the approach to Mt Vic, Cobweb Collectibles is still going as is the 1934 vintage cinema Mt Vic Flicks.

Mount Victoria’s icon survives

Mount Vic Flicks in Harley Avenue continues to be family-owned and run independent cinema. But it’s also had its share of closure threats over its long history.

Originally owned by Katoomba Council it was called Mount Victoria Pictures from the 1930s, but closed in the late 1950s until three decades later in 1986, Ron and Diane Bayley leased it from council and re-opened it privately as Mount Vic Flicks. The venue has since become a nostalgic favourite outing for many upper Blue Mountains locals and visitors alike.

Then in 2013 as technology advanced, Hollywood decided to globally transition film distribution from celluloid to digital format, so forcing cinemas to scrap their celluloid projectors and each acquire state of the art digital projectors at a cost of about $100K. This outlay was beyond the Bayley’s, so they decided to sell the cinema lease and retire.

Fortunately, Katoomba locals Kirsten Mulholland and Adam Cousins took over the lease and funded the digital upgrade, so keeping Mount Vic Flicks operating with access to new file releases.

From December 2019 to date, the government lockdown restrictions (bushfires and pandemic) have forced the favourite cinema to again close to the public on and off for nearly two years, only re-opening under pandemic rules since last month. It remains open thankfully…currently.

Lastly, the Mount Victoria Community Association has organised its annual nostalgic Mt Victoria Great Train Weekend festival in the last weekend of May.

Steampunk celebrates Mt Vic!

The festival features steam train rides from Sydney through Mt Victoria to Clarence and return, historic tractor rides, market stalls in Victoria Park, the rail museum, model railways, live entertainment and important for the local businesses, cafés and street food.

The most recent one was on 26th and 27th May in 2018 during the 150th anniversary of the rail reaching Mount Victoria. It was a complete success and brought considerable crowds to the village particularly from Sydney.

However, in 2019 (pre-pandemic) the NSW Government in its wisdom overlooked the schedule and imposed track work closure, so denying the steam train running, so the festival was cancelled. In both 2020 and 2021, the government’s pandemic lockdowns have denied the festival from proceeding.

READ MORE: https://mountvictoria.nsw.au/

Postscript:

Updated: 2023-01-27

Nearly three years after the December 2019 bushfire emergency by the New South Wales Berejiklian Government shut down the entire Blue Mountains region, the Blue Mountains [city] Council has announced that it has secured a cash splash from Canberra for the plight of Mount Victoria retail, calling it “an exciting package”.

Here’s Council’ press release in the local Blue Mountains Gazette newspaper dated 9th November 2022.

Bit bloody late Mr Mayor!

Well Council’s outsourced consultation at online ‘your say’ failed to send a registration email, so that was a dead end.

It seems Council has timed this gesture just two days short of three years to the day (Tuesday 11th November 2019); the day the Berejiklian Government declared a bushfire emergency and shut down the entire Blue Mountains region.

The emergency declaration was to be the first of three rolling emergency shutdowns/lockdowns in response to the government’s own abject failure by its joint departmental abandonment of the Gospers Mountain fire.

The fire had ignited from a pile burn on a rural property off Army Road some 60 km to the north of Mount Victoria on Saturday 26th October 2019. But it was allowed to burn half a million hectares of Blue Mountains world heritage national park and ultimately threaten the village of Mount Victoria in the process. Recklessly responsible were the joint NSW government departments of the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service (a misnomer) and the Rural Fire Service.

So now three years hence, here’s Council’s “exciting package” announcement to Mount Victoria retailers on 9th November 2022:

“Council has secured funding to deliver an exciting package of works to boost the social and economic recovery of Mount Victoria in the wake of the ongoing impacts of the Black Summer bushfires of 2019-20.

The Mount Victoria Village Recovery Package is made up of a comprehensive range of village upgrades and initiatives that have been identified by Council in consultation with the Mount Victoria community.

Between late 2022 and mid-2024, the following improvements and support initiatives are planned:

• Improved village marketing and promotion: an interpretative heritage trail to guide visitors through the village, and a new Visitor Information Sign to promote local experiences

• Enhanced village centre amenity: new planting, street trees and seating to revitalise the village.

• Mount Victoria Memorial Park renewals: a renewed entrance to the park; carpark upgrades including the upgrade of the adjacent stormwater channel; accessible footpaths; visual amenity improvements to the park water fountain; and sculptural installations by local artists;

• Smart City initiatives: a local weather station to improve bushfire threat knowledge and smart sensors to improve asset management; and

• Business support package: mentoring and resources to equip local businesses to better prepare for disasters and enable them to build a strong business support network.

The first part of the upgrades are planned to commence by the end of 2022 (weather permitting), to improve the safety of the heritage staircase along the Great Western Highway and enhance the streetscape.”

So, is this another case of ‘pebblecrete it and they (the tourists) will come back’?

Blue Mountains {city} Council wasted a million dollars in 2021 pebblecreting the main retail precinct footpaths in Katoomba and Wentworth Falls. Retailers went broke as result like Gemglow Jewellers in Katoomba and The Little Things boutique in Wentworth Falls.

Three years late is hardly exciting. Council’s “upgrades and initiatives” extend out to 2024, so that’s a good four years after when they were needed back in December 2019!

The grant is not coming from local council nor from the New South Wales state government (responsible for the bushfire emergency lockdown), but from bureaucrats in Canberra who have a spare $900,000 left in the lockdown kitty. They probably don’t even know where Mount Victoria actually is.

These “upgrades and initiatives” feature marketing and promotion for retail, which all but no longer exists. Someone also thinks tarting up the park and streets with Lithgow-inspired sculptures (akin to Inch Street) will “enhance the streetscape” and “enhance local experiences.”

Enhance it and they will surely come, despite nearly all the shops being closed?

Here’s Council bureaucrat’s existing template to reinvigorate the Mt Vic ghost:

Taking too long?

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From Canberra’s $900,000 pocket money, we count seven verge trees, a disabled path through the flood prone Victoria Park, a few street seats (for amenity) and closure of the heritage staircase.

The only remnant retail business in this ghost village are the historic cinema Mt Vic Flicks, the gift shop ‘Mount Vic and Me’ and Cobweb Collectibles. Around in Montgomery Street is Niccoló’s Restaurant & Bar inside the old Manor House which was forced to sell up during the pandemic in 2020. It’s been Hotel Etico since, but open only Thursday to Saturday between 5pm and 9pm and you need to pre-book.

Piccolo Deli is currently closed for renovation. It is uncertain of the status of the general store and newsagency on the highway. It was up for sale during the pandemic lockdown.

Flash car park, but where’s the sushi sign?

Mt Vic’s remnant tourist cuisine: refrigerated sushi with International Roast coffee

More on the trendy ‘resilience’ front, Council reckons installing a local weather station for Mt Vic will improve bushfire threat knowledge no end. May be its just some smoke detector, like when a fire starts 60km away at a farm pile burn at Gospers Mountain on 26th October 2019, but no-one thinks to put it out before it threatens Mt Vic on 20th December, nearly two months later?

Also, government’s offering mentoring and resources to equip local businesses to better prepare for disasters and enable them to build a strong business support network.

Nice but who and where?

“The first part of (belated) government upgrades are planned to commence by the end of 2022 (weather permitting), to improve the safety of the heritage staircase along the Great Western Highway and enhance the streetscape.”

What, this heritage staircase? Council’s $900,000 grant from Canberra is to permanently close it – by demolishing it?

Gaile from Victorious Interiors once told us that the building used to be a petrol station back in the 1930s, where the narrower cars of the era could drive up and down the ramp, and that the original two fuel tanks remain under the footpath.

Most retailers have sadly long left Mt Vic. Most of the businesses were forced to sell up due to the government lockdowns denying visitation (local and tourist).

Long gone are The Bay Tree Tea Shop, Pippa’s Sweet Box, Café Petalura (Theo Poulos Real Estate still currently has it on the market), Mountain Top Café, Robyn Austin Leadlights, Jennifer Marie’s The Psychic Emporium.

Toy and hobby shop, Planes Trains and Automobiles (owned by Keith Mentiplay and John Ross) relocated from 86 Great Western Highway in Mount Victoria to 50 Govetts Leap Road in nearby Blackheath.

Then in 2019 the business again relocated to the former live music room of The Gearin hotel in Katoomba after The Gearin had closed as a licensed pub in March 2019.

Survivors: Planes Trains and Automobiles owners Keith Mentiplay and John Ross keeping one step ahead

The young local couple who bought the village’s historic Victoria and Albert hotel/guesthouse for $1.9 million on 18th October 2017, spent hundreds of thousands renovating the historic hotel.

Tania Wiseman (a Mt Vic local as a child) and husband Wayne Thompson bought the 30-room hotel/guesthouse in October 2017

Our tour director recalls calling in with his tour groups, impressed with the new front café kitchen they installed and the great coffee. Tania explained that they had spent $100,000 repainting the exterior alone.

But four and a half years later, struggling through the bushfire emergencies, more than two years of pandemic lockdowns and resultant dearth in visitation (due to no paying guests), at least they recouped some of their investment when they sold on 4th April 2022 for $2.4M.

The historic Victoria and Albert authentically restored by Tania and Wayne [2017-2022]

The Imperial Hotel was once a go to pit-stop for refreshing passing travellers, especially motor biker groups.

Halcyon days, when Blue Mountains businesses thrived, and local council kept to its ‘Rates, Roads and Rubbish‘

But in then it was run down and then closed for years. In 2017 it was sold to Liv Xie’s China-based One Pro Investment Group for $2.5 million and has been boarded up ever since. No more weekend drinks on the sunny beer garden for travelling bikers.

The historic and popular Imperial Hotel locked up and derelict under absentee investors, reminiscent of the absentee landlords of 19th Century crofters of Scotland

Mount Vic has been made a ghost town due to government back-to-back lockdowns 2019-2022 and persisting with the dearth of overseas tourist visitation

Check the spelling on the notice

The Imperial Hotel Beer Garden photographed January 2023. The once thriving, but since abandoned and derelict site is steadily emulating the demise of Katoomba’s Renaissance Centre which is situated opposite Council chambers – a perpetual reminder to councillors of what happens when approving dodgy land use development.

Mount Vic village may as well have tumbleweeds rolling down Station Street into the museum.