Ettamogah Pub in Albury: Australia's most iconic cartoon pub is listed for sale

The pub sits on a 4.81-hectare site at 561 Burma Road, Table Top, just off the main road just 13 minutes from the prominent border-straddling regional hub of Albury-Wodonga.

Built in 1987 as a tourist attraction, the Ettamogah Pub was inspired by a long-running magazine cartoon sketched by the late Ken Maynard, apparently named after an Indigenous word for “place of good drink”. 

Delighting generations of grey nomads, Instagram-seeking souls and locals alike as a roadside pitstop along the bland highway commute between Melbourne and Sydney, the popular pub spawned a chain of Ettamogah Pubs across Australia, plus company-owned and franchised themed restaurants, merchandise and animation production.

The landmark pub’s Australiana village-like site features extensive artwork and dramatically themed structures, like crashed planes and a prison made from a hollow tree stump. The bushwacking setup includes a dining barn, vacant retail spaces, an oval, camping facilities, a function space and a museum dedicated to its cartoonist inventor.

However, it’s not just a boozer with development potential, diverse income streams and bones for expansion. Savills describes it as a brand in its own right, a “culturally iconic asset with enduring appeal”. 

“Its strong brand identity, unique architecture, and emotional connection with generations of Australians position it as a long-term strategic investment with potential for growth, diversification and legacy value,” the agency writes.

Investors can acquire the nostalgic Ettamogah brand, with its recognisable intellectual property (IP) and cartoon backstory providing a solid foundation for the right operator to give it a reboot. Think franchising rights, merchandising and further nationalisation potential.

The photogenic two-storey pub – with nine bar taps – has benefited from the growth of social media and tourism platforms and expanded over the years to include a bistro barn seating 80 guests, serving classic Aussie fare like schnitzels and bangers and mash. It also has a playground.

Savills Hotels manager Drew Mitchell says while the expressions of interest campaign is freshly launched, it’s already attracted a lot of interest.

“It’s only … been 24 hours since we’ve launched, so very much in its infancy, but already we’re garnering quite a lot of interest about this unique offering,” he says.

“It’s certainly not something that has come across my desk before, in the sense that you get the property, but also the unique portfolio of IP, and trademark, and cartoons, and animation series, and all sorts of things.”

While the asking price of around $50 million includes a library of more than 1500 cartoons, concepts, and artwork, plus a 12-part animation series, the package can be broken up and sold separately.

Mitchell says placing a cost on each component was tricky, so they preferred to let the expressions of interest campaign play out.

“It’s just a complex nature, right? Because someone might come in and just buy the pub and land, yes. And then someone might come in and just be interested in the IP and animation and cartoon, and then also someone else might want the artwork as well,” he says.

The property was listed for sale in 2019 with a price guide of around $3.5 million, but it ultimately stayed in the hands of its current owner, Leigh O’Brien.

Maynard first sketched his concept of the pub in 1959, and the former police officer’s work went on to be regularly published in Australia’s longest-running weekly picture magazine, The Australasian Post – also known as the Aussie Post – from the 1960s until it ceased publication in 2002.

Inspired by the series, businessman Lindsay Cooper decided to construct a real-life version of the character-filled building in 1987.

A decade later, in 1997, O’Brien – who had bought all the rights to the Ettamogah concept a few years prior – bought the pub and, for the next three decades, switched between different operation models.

Now O’Brien, still managing director of the Ettamogah Group, is ready to retire  28 years on.

“He’d like for it to go into the right hands so can continue the legacy,” Mitchell says. “It’s just the right time for him to move on.”

The first spinoff of the Ettamogah pub arrived in 1989 at Palmview on the ​Sunshine Coast, as part of the Aussie World theme park. However, it was later rebranded as The Pub at Aussie World, before more recently becoming The Banana Bender Pub.

Other spinoffs include a suburban outlet in Kellyville Ridge, about 40 kilometres north-west of Sydney’s CBD, and one in the small wheat belt town of Cunderin, Western Australia, two hours’ drive north-east of Perth.

Mitchell says the expansive spare land at Ettamogah would lend itself to residential use, and can host festivals, live music and private events, like the upcoming Torana Muscle car show.

The Ettamogah Pub offers patrons unpowered camping and caravan facilities on an expansive, grassed oval, with guests able to use the on-site bathroom and shower facilities.

If the vacant retail spaces were reactivated, investors could expect gross sales income of $300,000, although the space has been earmarked for use as a potential large supermarket.

Table Top’s population is growing as Albury-Wodonga exceeds 100,000 residents, and it is now home to 1,443 middle-aged locals aged 40-56, according to Domain data.