To say Brunswick’s Railway Hotel has a chequered history is to perhaps understate it.

The three-storey, nearly 140-year-old pub on Albert Street has also served as a morgue and a hostel – among other things – in its long lifetime. Some say it’s haunted. And it gained notoriety in 2016 when two of its then-managers were charged with a raft of drug offences in a Victoria Police sting, the Herald Sun reported at the time.

Following the drug bust, the Railway lay dormant – and fell into disrepair – before Melbourne hospitality collective Riverland Group (The Boatbuilders Yard, Riverland,
Pilgrim, the General Assembly, Bang Bang at the Rifle Club) took over.

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“Unfortunately, because it had been closed for so long while we were trying to get the permits, it had been home to a few people moving through the place,” Riverland Group co-owner Richie Ludbrook told Broadsheet in 2019. “And then a lot of people were stripping what they could out of it.”

It was set to undergo a major renovation and reopen under the Riverland Group as a 965-person mega-pub in March 2020. But the pandemic had other plans.

“It’s been a real roller-coaster,” says venue manager Vincent La Posta of the two-year delay, which will culminate in a mid-March opening.

Since then, Northcote Social Club and media personality Mick Molloy have bought into the project.

And the elongated reno has uncovered some unusual, unexpected parts of the Railway’s underbelly.

Smack bang in the middle of a curved stairwell leading to the very top floor, one stair is false. “You pull on it and it slides backwards and out,” La Posta explains. Beneath is what he calls “the Harry Potter room”, reminiscent of the fictional boy wizard’s cupboard-under-the-stairs bedroom. Accessible only via the small void in the stairs, the concealed, drywalled space is “big enough for multiple people to fit inside”.

Moving on, in the upstairs office, the team discovered an unlikely exit from the building – with an extra room and staircase – hidden by a curiously thin wall. “If you ran at that wall, you would’ve busted straight through it and fallen down the stairs,” La Posta says. It would swiftly get you out of the building and onto one of its roof spaces.

And on another floor, there was an intriguing find in one of the (working) showers, which would’ve serviced the hostel way back when. “You turn a soap dispenser, and it reveals a sort of hidey-hole,” says La Posta. What lies behind is a dumbwaiter, or freight elevator, that he says would’ve been used to run things up and down the building.

Meanwhile, below ground level, “the basement used to be a morgue at certain periods in the building’s life,” says La Posta. “It’s a dark, bloody scary space – but it has beautiful brick archways.” And it’s since been converted into the pub’s keg room.

Reflecting on the discovery process, La Posta says: “I find abandoned spaces – and stuff a lot of people don’t get to see – fascinating. And it puts lots of ideas in your head of what the space could’ve been used for. Choose your own adventure.”

To an extent.

Now’s a good time to mention that what the group has uncovered won’t form part of the pub’s official offering when it finally opens. But it’s not entirely off the cards. “We might do guided tours – if we can get [the areas] up to builder’s inspection code.”

What you will be able to experience, though, is the rest of the venue completely reimagined in collaboration with Melbourne architect Therefore Studio.

The pub’s historical facade has been maintained, and inside will be a moody, late-night corner bar (it’s licensed until 3am) with dark wood furnishings, vinyl-only DJs and a vermouth-driven cocktail list with a bent towards house ferments and syrups.

Backing onto it will be an 80-seat dining room, which will serve a charcoal-fired Eastern Mediterranean menu “inspired by Brunswick’s cultural heritage and ancestry”, La Posta says; expect charry rotisserie chook and whole cauliflower, and veggie shawarma.

To the right, through the old horse stables, is what La Posta describes as the “more approachable” main bar, as well as a collection of communal spaces where the old shed and next-door house once were. And along the train line there’ll be a sprawling, family-friendly beer garden that’ll also serve as an extension of the dining room.

While it’s an undoubtedly new era for the longstanding pub, the team hopes some of its old-timey charm remains. “We want people who used to come here to feel like it’s been put back on the right track,” says La Posta. “That it’s really kept its soul.”

Hotel Railway is slated to open in mid-March.

@hotelrailway