The 'Mucka Bup' sign blip creates marketing gold as outback pub-resort lists

“Mucka Bup,” it reads – the result of a signwriter’s slip that the owners chose to embrace rather than erase, and which locals later adopted as part of the pub’s identity.

“They saw it and thought, you know what? That’s a bit crazy. Let’s just leave it,” says listing agent Scotty Williams from SGW Hotel Broker.

What began as a back-to-front spelling of PUB has since evolved into a recognisable brand, appearing on merchandise such as hats and country shirts sold at the pub and helping cement the rebuilt venue as the social hub of Queensland’s western farming belt.

Now the 0.81-hectare Warrego Highway holding – comprising a new-build freehold hotel with eight modern self-contained cabins, six powered caravan sites and a separate two-bedroom owner’s residence – is being offered for sale at $1.5 million plus stock.

Located at 46925 Warrego Highway, about 500 kilometres from Brisbane and just 40 kilometres from its nearest main town of Roma, the 600-square-metre pub occupies an expansive 8675-square-metre site in the heart of Queensland’s Maranoa region, a semi-arid area known for its agriculture and oil and natural gas industries. 

The original timber hotel, which stood for more than a century, was destroyed by fire in August 2019, leaving the tiny community without its long-loved watering hole. According to an ABC report, the Mucka Pub was destroyed in a matter of minutes when the wind blew flames from a fire next door into the pub’s air-conditioning duct. Its former owners weren’t in a position to take on a rebuild.

So the vendors – local farmers who already owned surrounding land – purchased the licence and site after the blaze and decided to rebuild it for the community, eventually reopening two years later after the pandemic.

“They just thought, ‘We’re in the area, let’s give the town its pub back’,” Williams says.

The rebuild didn’t simply replace a building; it reinstated elements of the pub’s history, with most of the materials sourced locally.

Among them is the “seat of knowledge”, a bench seat recreated in the new hotel after fondly featuring in the original pub.

“In the old pub they had this ‘seat of knowledge’,” Williams says. “Some of the elder farmers from the area have rights to it.”

The nod to tradition sits alongside solid timber construction, Chesterfield lounges, a fireplace, heavy timber tables and even urinals fashioned from old beer kegs. A Queenslander-style deck wraps around the exterior, opening into a traditional beer garden.

“They had massive amounts of timber, the real heavy sort of timber stuff, built for life. It is incredible,” Williams says. “There’s lots of little memorabilia pieces all around the pub, and photos of what it was, and the stages, to get it to today.”

He describes it as the kind of pub you walk into on a cold night and immediately want to settle in.

“It’s the classic pub that you walk into and think, ‘How good is this? I’m just going to spend the night here.’”

Beyond the bar, which serves all areas from a single point, the offering expands into something rarely seen in regional hotels.

The property includes eight modern, fully self-contained cabins with kitchens and en suites, six powered caravan sites with amenities, a fully fenced in-ground swimming pool and a near-new owner’s residence with garage, shed and large carport.

“For anyone with tractors or, you know, bigger vehicles, there’s heaps of room there for that,”  Williams says.

“It’s really like a pub caravan park … I’d call it a resort on its own.”

At peak times such as Easter, the cabins fill and caravans line the powered sites, with families spending the day around the pool and beer garden while parents settle in for a counter lunch.

“It attracts families. It attracts a lot of the farm guys,” Williams says. “You’ve always got 50 or 60 people around on a Thursday, Friday or Saturday afternoon.”

Truck drivers travelling the Warrego Highway are also catered for, with shower facilities and a dedicated cabin for truckies, reinforcing its role as a stopover for passing trade as well as a gathering point for the surrounding farming district.

The kitchen leans firmly into traditional country fare.

“It’s your real Aussie pub food,” Williams says. “In the winter, it’s the lamb shanks, rissoles, your roasts. They’re big on steak sandwiches during the day – the big steak sangers.”

The rebuild is understood to have cost about $2.3 million, positioning the $1.5 million-plus-stock asking price below replacement value.

“It’s under replacement cost,” Williams says, describing the opportunity as one not to miss.

The hotel also hosts monthly local markets, further embedding it in the community between Roma and Mitchell, which is supported by around 600-700 local farmers and the broader Maranoa community of about 13,000.

For Williams, who specialises in regional hotel transactions, the property’s appeal lies in both its character and its roaring trade.

“It really is the hub of the whole area,” he says. “When you go in there, the atmosphere is incredible.”