A Rushworth centrepiece, the Criterion Hotel is up for sale.
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Criterion Hotel Rushworth
A 166-year-old building which contains a pizza shop, bistro, bar and Rushworth’s only operating hotel is up for grabs.
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The current licensees of the Rushworth Criterion Hotel are offering up the lease due to ongoing health issues in the family.
Owner Kerrin Bartlett said there had been a fair bit of interest in the pub, but nothing had stuck yet.
“Hopefully the right owner is jut around the corner,” Mrs Bartlett said.
“There is a lot of history here. The original owners kept it within their family for 60-odd years, each publican leaving the hotel in their will to his children.
“The last family member to own it was a so-called ‘spinster’ who sold it when she married at 40 in the early 1990s.”
An old picture of the hotel with verandah still attached.
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Criterion Hotel Rushworth
The first owners were Sir Sidney Nolan’s great-grandparents, giving the hotel a direct connection to one of Australia’s most significant artists, most famous for his abstract Ned Kelly paintings.
“People from all over the place come to visit the pub because they either ran around in it as kids or were from Rushworth and grew up around it. There’s been wakes, weddings, funerals, you name it,” Mrs Bartlett said.
“We’re in the middle of nowhere, but we’re in the middle of everywhere. We have a lot of people who meet here to catch up.”
The lease is being sold through PRD Shepparton (formerly Barry Plant).
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