A landmark business in the Upper Murray is roaring back to life following last summer's bushfires and COVID shutdowns.
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The Koetong Hotel between Tallangatta and Corryong was closed for almost 18 months before an East Gippsland family moved over to re-open the pub mid-year.
Alan and Shelley Henry operate the hotel with daughters, Tegan and Brittany, with the latter living across the road with her husband, Brandon and one-year-old son, Carter, after they also made the move from Cootamundra.
"I've done 25 to 30 years in hospitality and vowed and declared I would never go back into it," Shelley said.
"But we went through one day and had a look and here we are.
"We were also going to be across the road from our daughter and we thought we could run it as a family business which we are doing."
The pub freehold sale settled in early March soon after the summer bushfires, which also hit East Gippsland hard, had been finally extinguished.
The Henrys lived at Tambo Upper near Lakes Entrance and had to evacuate their home on at least two occasions at the height of the fire crisis.
The Koetong Hotel, built in the 1870s, was previously owned by Jim and Jane Boyle and shut its doors two years ago.
Their daughter Jennie Vinge was the most recent licensee.
A liquor licence was secured by the Henrys in late July, but coronavirus restrictions limited them to selling take away food only before gradually building up its offering in recent weeks.
"We were able to do lots of stuff behind the scenes and even externally which you can see," Mrs Henry said.
"We opened the bar about six weeks ago and have only had beer on tap for four weeks.
"But we've been very overwhelmed by the local support.
"We are getting busy, but we need to manage things and occasionally need to shutdown the kitchen because we've got so many orders.
"We want to get more staff including a chef to do night meals two to three times a week.
"If we can get more staff we will definitely expand into things we would like to do, but until that happens we are not going to."
The staff limitations means the pub only serves meals on Saturday nights presently, but the pub is open seven days per week from 10am.
Alan worked in the timber industry across Gippsland for many years.
