THE men behind cool Newcastle speakeasy Coal and Cedar have partnered with two Newcastle businessman to purchase historic Dudley pub the Royal Crown Hotel.
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And they’ve promised it’ll be a “pub for the people” with one of the best outdoor drinking and dining experiences in the country.
"From day one [co-owner] Ryan [Hawthorne] and I have always dreamed of culminating our hospitality repertoire within one large hotel,” Coal and Cedar co-owner Ethan Ortlipp said.
“We are lucky enough to have teamed up with two incredible Newcastle businessmen, Travis Hargreaves [Director, Ausure Insurance Newcastle] and Richard Claut [Founding Director of RTC Group] to join in this venture and activate an incredibly historic hotel.
“The venue will be restored where possible with the first stage of construction focusing bon the outdoor experience.
“We are in the process of designing one of the most exciting outdoor drink and dine experiences in the country.
“Being a neighbourhood bar we hope to respectfully transition the hotel to its former glory under guidance from the locals.
“We would like to see the Royal Crown become a hub of food, drink and entertainment. “Within the venue, without giving too much away our guests will be able to experience all the greatest elements of hospitality in one place.
"This will be a pub for the people."
Coal and Cedar announced the purchase on their Facebook page this week and posted a black and white image of what the pub once looked like.
“There is plenty of work to be done to get it back looking like this and up to our standards,” the post reads.
“In the meantime, we invite anyone to come and check it out.
“We would love to bounce some ideas off our loyal guests. “Some very cool concepts going in the venue that will be very refreshing and innovative.” Included in those is an idea to bring your dog to the beer garden on Sundays and burger pop-ups courtesy of the lads at Lowlands Bowling Club.
Can we suggest a giant Jenga tower?
WHO IS TWEETING WHAT FROM TRUMP’S ACCOUNT
If you’re on the Twitter then you’ll know that ol’ Donny Trump loves to send out a tweet or two.
The social media app was a key tool during his presidential campaign and helped him capture the attention of a bitter middle-class who desperately wanted change.
And while this week’s revelations about “urine” and “Russia” have dominated the news cycle, there was something else that popped up on Twitter that many people may have missed.
Let’s set aside, for a moment, the meaning behind some of Trump’s tweets or the reason for them and just look at who is actually tweeting from his account.
That’s what US journalist Ashley Feinberg did by identifying what device each of the president-elect’s tweets originated from.
Feinberg claims that Trump uses an Android device, while his social media aides are on iPhones or using “web client”.
The tweets went like this;
“Wow, the ratings are in and Arnold Schwarzenegger got “swamped” (or destroyed) by comparison to the ratings machine, DJT. “So much for being a movie star and that was season 1 compared to season 14. Now compare him to my season 1. But who cares he supported [Governor of Ohio] John Kasich and Hillary [Clinton].”
Reminder: this is the president-elect of the United States speaking.
The others were: “Happy Birthday Eric Trump!” and “Monitoring the terrible situation in Florida. Just spoke to Governor Scott. Thoughts and prayers for all. Stay safe!”
“Things Trump cares enough about to tweet himself: TV ratings,” Feiberg tweeted, along with several screen-grabs of Trump’s tweets, highlighting the device they were sent from. “Things aides have to tweet about for him: son’s birthday, tragic mass shooting.” You would think that in the current climate – with Trump able to seemingly bring down the global economy or severe diplomatic ties with, we don’t know, say Australia with the press of a button – then more news outlets would want to report the origins of each tweet as a matter of course.
The difference between Trump tweeting stuff himself or his staff seems relevant.
WARNING: FAKE NEWS
IT’S happened.
We’ve been “Betooted” (again).
It’s not often the Newcastle Herald, or Topics for that matter, reports the news of another outlet. But this is the Betoota Advocate, the country’s foremost satirical news website.
It’s like a grouse, Aussie version of The Onion. The yarn, entitled “Newcastle Steelworker Thinking About The Nineties Again”, is pretty simple.
Garry Johns, 42, is reminiscing about when the Knights were good, when silverchair were really firing and when there was a “seemingly endless supply of high-paying blue collar jobs on the wharfs, in the steel mill and in the factories building trains”.
“We’d finish a week at the steelworks, nail a couple of schoeys at Queens Wharf and some VCRs [vodka, coke and rasberry] to get the night started. “Hunter street was thumping, we’d end up at Fannies.” “These days there’s no VCRs, no Fannies, no hill at Marathon…” If you were born in the 1970s, like fictional “Garry”, or even the 80s, like us, then you can definitely relate.
