Tradies cut through eight inches of concrete between the first and second floors to connect lines from the kegs in the cellar to the bars on both levels.

“I’m quality control,” one tradie said with a grin as schooners were filled to test the new lines and the debate on the perfect pour began.

For the record, one centimetre is considered the perfect head on a beer.

The Table Top icon has been closed since May 2011 after owner Leigh O’Brien’s company was liquidated.

But Mr O’Brien is well and truly in the process of dusting-off the cobwebs on the 1987 original pub, inspired by Ken Maynard’s cartoon in the Australasian Post magazine that spawned a chain of Ettamogah pubs across the country.

“It should never have ended up the way it was in the first place,” Mr O’Brien said.

“It’s an icon.”

Mr O’Brien plans to open the pub on the Easter weekend and the site was a hive of activity yesterday with tradies tramping and cranes lifting equipment onto the second floor.

He has sub-divided land next door for housing and has sold the cabins on the other side to a developer in Melbourne.

He wants to open a water park at the back, as well as supermarket and shops.

“I’ve got to cater for the locals first of all, we need shops and so on,” he said.

Mr O’Brien, who bought the pub in 1997, said he would be re-opening it at an opportune time.

“The population has taken all this time to come out here; everything hasn’t been growing until the last couple of years,” he said.