It was casual meeting at a Balmain barbecue in 2000 that changed the course of restaurateur and tourism chief Will Creedon’s life, steering the globe-trotting young Irishman to the Hunter Valley.
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At that barbecue, the then 25-year-old hospitality entrepreneur introduced himself to Bill and Imelda Roche, the cosmetics company rich-listers and philanthropists who had a vision to create a world-class garden in the Hunter Valley.
It proved to be one of several turning points in Creedon’s life. He was quickly drafted in to assist with the ambitious project and what he had intended to be a brief holiday to visit his sister Hilary became the start of a new life. Six months later he was running the newly opened Harrigan’s pub at Pokolbin and before too long was managing the entire Hunter Valley Gardens complex for the Roche Group.
Creedon, who has forged an identity in the region as a restaurateur, publican, events organiser, and tourism leader, says his first foray into the hospitality industry was as a humble glass collector, albeit at the tender age of 12, in Welsh’s Bar, a pub in his tiny home town of Aherla, County Cork.
“The guidelines around pubs were pretty loose in Ireland then,” he laughs. And indeed they must have been, because Creedon had his first job as a pub manager before the age of 17. By 18, he was off to see the world, working in pubs and bars across England and Canada. That was when he reached another another turning point.
“It was a Thursday night, one fateful Thursday night at a quarter to ten, I’ll never forget it, in a bar in Toronto. I was tapped on my left hand by a man who had been assigned a task by one of the biggest beverage companies in the world to create a team to grow market share for them,” Creedon says, his Irish lilt heightening the storytelling.
The mystery man was a representative of Guinness, which wanted to recruit him into a travelling team charged with opening new food and beverage outlets in large global cities to grow market share. The job was to take him to more than 20 countries before he finally landed in Australia.
It is that background that explains a lot about Creedon’s eye for a good thing, an intuition he has applied to opening several landmark establishments in Newcastle since leaving the Hunter Valley eight years ago.
He loved his time in the valley, with its “raw, astute characters and lovable rogues” but the move was hastened by the death of his close friend Trevor Drayton in a vineyard explosion in 2008.
“I’m a bit of a workaholic, I’m driven, and so was he – we were very similar,” Creedon says. “It was time for me to look at myself in a clinical way, in the cold light of day, and assess where I was.”
Creedon went back to his pub roots, buying the Lambton Park Hotel and linking up with an old vineyard connection, chef Mark Hosie, who took over the kitchen. Together they have since created two popular inner-city venues, the lavishly decorated Rustica restaurant opposite Newcastle Beach, and the hip Three Bears cafe in the mall, both of which have enhanced the ongoing East End revival.
“With Rustica, many people have a connection to that old hospital location and we developed it at a time when there was an anxiousness about the vitality of Hunter Street and the city,” he said. “It helped to show that if people do invest and believe, then good things can happen. It helped give some confidence back to the city.”
As Tourism Hunter chief, Creedon is drawn to the city and region, he says, because “I see opportunity here”. If only, he adds quickly, Hunter people would shake the chip off their shoulder.
“I hate hearing Newcastle referred to as the second city of NSW,” he seethes. “We don’t believe enough in what we have and where we have come from – and if we don’t believe enough in who we are and our history and how it has shaped us as a district, how the hell are we going to forge our future?
“When you look at the commentary sometimes around Newcastle and the district, it’s like we deserve things. Well, I’m sorry, nobody deserves anything. You have to work for what you get. Every area wants to improve itself, but it also has to prove itself.”
Creedon’s partner, Liberal Party identity Karen Howard, has political ambitions, but he is quick to dismiss any suggestion he might one day pursue the same path.
“No,” he says emphatically. “It’s just not for me. I believe everybody is given gifts – and mine is creating environments for people to be happy in.”
