Doyles Watsons Bay for sale with $70 million price expectations
Doyles restaurant at Watsons Bay, at the entrance to Sydney Harbour, is as Aussie as they come – a picture-postcard seafood destination where generations of diners have pulled up a chair.
Now investors can buy more than a table with a view, with the historic waterfront landholding and hospitality businesses on the market through HTL Property with price expectations of $70 million.
“There wouldn’t be many Sydneysiders who haven’t enjoyed a long lunch or a sunset drink at Doyles, and its popularity as a venue has been matched by purchaser enquiry and attention since the campaign launch,” says HTL Property’s Daniel Dragicevich.
According to agents, the historic Doyles on the Beach restaurant has remained in the same family for five generations and is being offered to the market for the first time in 141 years.
The Doyles Watsons Bay name, businesses and about 2503 square metres of waterfront freehold land are being offered for sale, opening a potential new chapter for the family-run institution.
“This is an exceptionally rare opportunity to acquire a landmark Sydney Harbour waterfront property holding with an extraordinary fifth-generation history and an equally compelling underlying real estate proposition,” says co-selling agent Andrew Jolliffe.
“There are very few hospitality assets nationally that combine this level of brand recognition, historical significance and absolute beachfront positioning; particularly within a location as tightly held and internationally recognised as Sydney Harbour.”
With about 29 metres of Watsons Bay Beach frontage, the holding combines the celebrated restaurant, indoor and al fresco dining areas and a separate rear residence, with uninterrupted views across the harbour towards the CBD.
That waterfront dining tradition owes much to vendor Michael Doyle’s parents, Alice and Jack Doyle, who Woollahra Council credits with helping pioneer outdoor dining in Sydney when it wasn’t the done thing.
Beachfront parcel anchors offering
The coveted dual-fronted beachfront parcel sits just metres from Watsons Bay Wharf with ferry connections to Circular Quay.
Buyers can acquire the freehold landholding with or without the Doyles on the Beach restaurant and Doyles Garden Bar business at 11 Marine Parade, plus the rear residence at 2 Cliff Street.
An additional leasehold business interest in Doyles on the Wharf takeaway at 1 Military Road, just metres from the restaurant, is also on offer. The takeaway kiosk occupies about 420 square metres at the entrance to Watsons Bay Wharf, with just less than 25 years remaining on its lease with Transport for NSW, Dragicevich says.
The freehold holding spans three titles, with 40.6 metres facing Cliff Street, where guest parking for 40 cars and around 800 square metres of basement storage and back-of-house space are accessed.
Sydney Harbour location with tourism potential
At the tip of South Head, about 11 kilometres north-east of Sydney’s CBD, Watsons Bay draws visitors to Robertson Park, nearby beaches and Sydney Harbour National Park.
“Directly fronting Watsons Bay Beach, this exceptional holding represents one of the last remaining consolidated waterfront landholdings of its scale and significance,” the information memorandum (IM) says.
While building on its past, HTL identifies potential to enhance or reposition the property under its flexible tourist zoning.
According to the IM, hotels, motels, serviced apartments, food and drink premises, function centres and one dwelling house per allotment are among permissible future uses with consent, while development controls include an 8.2-metre height limit.
Council identifies the restaurant as a contributory building within the Watsons Bay Heritage Conservation Area, with controls requiring its retention and limiting changes to sympathetic alterations and additions.
The Doyle family’s pioneering outdoor dining legacy
The family describes Doyles as an “Australian heritage seafood cafe”.
According to its website, Alice Doyle’s forbearers settled in Watsons Bay in the early 1800s and sold their fresh catch from a hut on the restaurant site.
Woollahra Council dates a tearoom business to 1885, when Alice’s grandparents – fisherman Henry Newton and his wife Hannah – opened in a weatherboard cottage.
The site later housed the Ozone Cafe, which closed during the Depression.
In 1948, Alice and her husband Jack, who had returned from World War II, reopened the cafe with a loan from her mother, focusing on fresh seafood. Jack cooked fish, Alice worked out front and her mother made scones upstairs.
The couple worked hard to establish the al fresco dining tradition that remains central to the venue, while organising charitable events for disadvantaged families. Alice was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in 1987 for service to the restaurant industry and community.
The couple’s four sons, including Michael joined the expanding business. By 2002, the family operated six Sydney venues, with 22 family members involved at one point, and venues in Rose Bay, Sydney Fish Markets and Circular Quay.
The broader family was also connected to the historic former Watsons Bay Hotel next door, which was unveiled as Doyles Palace Hotel in 1992 following a $9 million refurbishment and is now operating under subsequent ownership as the four-star Watsons Bay Hotel.
Alice passed away in 2004, but her chilli plum sauce still accompanies the restaurant’s fish and chips.
The property is for sale via expressions of interest closing at 4pm AEDT on Wednesday, November 25.
