EP 29 - Save Our Country Pubs! Tim Allan from The Local

Can a country pub save a town?

This week on Chat On Tap, I sit down with Tim Allan, founder of The Local, a platform dedicated to telling the stories of Australia's pubs, the publicans who run them, and the communities that keep them alive.

We chat about why country pubs are so much more than somewhere to grab a beer, the challenges they're facing, and the incredible characters Tim has met while travelling Australia documenting these iconic venues.

Whether you're passionate about pubs, regional Australia, great storytelling or simply love discovering unique places, this episode is for you.

🍺 In this episode:

•  Why country pubs matter to local communities 
•  How The Local was created 
•  Travelling Australia in search of great pubs 
•  Preserving Australian pub culture 
•  Creating content around authentic stories 
•  The future of country hospitality

🍺 About Tim & The Local

Tim Allan is the founder of The Local, a storytelling platform dedicated to documenting Australia's country pubs, the publicans who run them, and the communities that keep them alive. What started as a passion project has grown into one of Australia's leading pub-focused media platforms, with millions of views across social media. 

Follow The Local
🌐 Website: https://the-local.com.au
📘 Facebook: https://facebook.com/downatthelocal
📸 Instagram: https://instagram.com/downatthelocal
🎥 YouTube: https://youtube.com/@downatthelocal (or search "The Local")
✉️ Email: downatthelocal@gmail.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Coming up on channel 10.

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Closed down not long enough to that stuff. I mean like the whole reason why we're doing this thing. Uh it's kind of backfired on us, but it's uh yeah, it's not uh hated. Yeah, they are the town hall, they are birth, deaths, marriages, weight. I get really emotional when uh when I sort of like start to think about all these pubs that closed down. The cost of running a pub, I think, is is is big.

SPEAKER_01 0:26

Welcome to Chat on Tap. My name is David Lennon, and I am so excited to bring you this episode. We are talking to Tim Allen. He is the host of the show, The Local, which you can get on YouTube and they have a huge Facebook community, and this show has so much heart. You know, they go out to these regional pubs and they really show you why the local pub in these communities is the heart and soul of the town. He's a very, very passionate man, he's very charismatic, he's been doing this a long time, so much so I didn't even have to intro my own show. So, enjoy. Alright, let's get it underway, eh?

SPEAKER_00 1:01

Yes, welcome to Chat on Tap. I'm here with host David Leno Lennon. Take it away. Oh, you can do the intro. Mate, it's great, it's funny, cool. I'm really happy to be here. I'm absolutely really interested in doing some more of these. So, uh mate, when you reached out, or actually, I think I reached out to you.

SPEAKER_01 1:20

Yeah, I I actually we have to we do have to say, well, firstly, cheers. Cheers. And um actually thank you to Emma from the Juni Hotel. She gave us the details.

SPEAKER_00 1:30

Cheers, Emma, she was very quick on it. So you've got to check this dude out.

SPEAKER_01 1:34

So I think I'm gonna have to hop um intro my own show. But you're listening to chat on tap. David Lennon's my name. I'm here with Tim Allen from The Local. He is the founder and host. Mate, it is wonderful to have you on the show. I've been watching your stuff for some time. In fact, I have a confession to make off the bat. The reason why I've seen your content for some time is because when I was coming up with a name for this show, it was going to be Leno at the local.

SPEAKER_00 1:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:56

And I even had Down at the Local, and I saw your Instagram and went, Ah, bastards already got it.

SPEAKER_00 2:02

Bugger! Yeah, well, obviously, I mean, like, it's it's a cool. We're we're really lucky that we've got the local, but there's a thousand other locals out there. There's a local in Tamworth, there's a local all over the place, but it works for what we do. We're all about the local, the importance of that local to the people in the community that uh frequent it. So it fits what we do. Sorry that we got in first, it's sucked in, you know. So anyway, I mean, I'm sure you know copyright law is is a is a beast, so I wouldn't not too protective of it. You can do what you want.

SPEAKER_01 2:35

So the local is um a YouTube channel, it's a Facebook page, it is essentially telling the stories predominantly of country pubs.

SPEAKER_00 2:42

Yeah, we've got a regional focus. So we started out in 21, just after the C-word, the pandemic, and the whole way that evolved was uh a colleague of mine, Matt Jeffrey, and it's me and Matt that do this whole thing, just us two. He sort of approached me and said, you know what, pubs are closing down everywhere in regional, rural, country Australia, and it's a massive problem. Do you want to go out and visit some country pubs to highlight the fact that we need to get people to go and visit these places because they are closing down and they need support, and if you don't use them, you lose them. And if the pub closes, the town dies. And that's really kind of the motto that we've been doing what we do for. We want to promote regional pubs because we know how important they are, we know how significant they are and the role they play, and the history is amazing. So we started doing this as a bit of a you know, let's go out and see some country pubs so we can give them a bit of a leg up and tell people don't worry about going to Bali when the pandemic adds. Go to country, go to regional areas and see some of these unbelievably beautiful places and some of these really amazing pubs. So that's kind of where it all started for us.

SPEAKER_01 3:56

During the middle of that big seaword, yeah, um, in 2020, when we first in New South Wales were you're allowed to travel regionally, and took it as a great opportunity to go. And my now wife and I went to Huskison, went down to the Husky Hotel.

SPEAKER_00 4:11

Great pub.

SPEAKER_01 4:12

And I remember it was very weird because I've been back since, but we were only there was only 50 people allowed in that entire venue.

SPEAKER_00 4:18

Yeah, wow, and it's a big pub, too.

SPEAKER_01 4:20

And it was a Saturday night. Like, this feels like a Tuesday, yeah. Um, but I feel like there was a sense then that yeah, these this is the centre of each town, right? And I guess that's what you found over your journey.

SPEAKER_00 4:36

Well, the more regional you go, the further uh the the more isolated a place that you go to, the more important that meeting spot is. That's the community hub when you go to these places, and like it is just you know, it's as I said, it's it's super duper vital, and when those places are gone, it's the end of the town, it's the end of it's the end of uh a lot of things. And so, you know, the some of the best places you can go to are the ones that you have to sort of try a little bit harder to get to, that you've got to probably dig in a little bit deeper. It's not just going to Mudgy for the weekend to taste some wines, you know. Like if you go right out west to a few pubs that are just pubs and a handful of people, but a big community that sort of surrounds it, and it's just the absolute hub of that entire region, some of these pubs.

SPEAKER_01 5:28

Yeah, well, I'd love to. We're gonna um dive into a you know a few of the specifics over the years or some of the favorites or highlights or memorables. Yep. But um, you know, give yourself a bit of cred. Tell tell everyone, someone who's never heard of the local, never heard you, what is your background? Because uh, like me personally, yeah, you've got a media background.

SPEAKER_00 5:46

Yeah, no, so I mean like uh well this came about because I was working at Fox Sports uh at the time, and there were a couple of guys, and sport got cancelled in 21. So we were all working in sport, and it was kind of like, wow, what do we do? There's no sport on apart from a bit of rugby league. So thanks to thanks to the man of feathers for that one, he did very well. Just take a quick sip.

SPEAKER_01 6:08

Yeah, of course.

SPEAKER_00 6:09

Sips are important, but no, I grew up in regional um Australia, I grew up in Bathurst. My first job out of uh high school was uh with a pub broker.

SPEAKER_01 6:21

All right.

SPEAKER_00 6:22

So I've had an interest in pubs for a long time. I remember being a young kid, and my dad was a cricketer, and going to the pub after cricket and being bored for hours watching your dad play cricket as a like a little guy, and then you know it was all worthwhile when you got to go to the pub at the end of the cricket game, and everyone's just laughing and having a beer, and like it was just such a warm community, great vibe. I've fell in love with pubs from an early age, and that's sort of evolved and evolved to now where I get to do it on a you know semi full-time, part-time uh you know, role, it's awesome, like it's really, really cool to be able to do something for pubs and go and visit the amount of pubs that we do, and we only we've only just scratched on the surface, like we've been doing this for five years, and there's six thousand pubs in Australia, and we've been to about I don't know, 150 of them. There's a lot to go, you know. There's uh there's a long way to go, and there's a big wish list as well. So it'd be really, really cool to see how long and uh how big we can make this thing because we've really gone from starting up, as I said, in 21, and we did a story. I think the first one was on the Taranat pub uh just near Lithgow, and uh it's just a sweet little pub, and then you know, O'Connell and a few others in central west of New South Wales, and and then uh we sort of took a little hiatus because it wasn't going in there, and then out of the blue we did a pub called Wombat.

SPEAKER_01 7:54

Yep, yep.

SPEAKER_00 7:54

The Wombat pub, I mean, probably in the name is why it sort of uh gave us a massive boost. But the Wombat pub video that we did on YouTube was basically did nothing for the first six weeks or six months, and then out of the blue, Matt called me and he said that pub video that we did's got 350,000 views in a couple of weeks out of nowhere, and it was just sort of like let's go and do more pub videos. Yeah, yeah. Have you worked out why?

SPEAKER_01 8:19

So I know. I mean, obviously, we're here to talk about pubs and whatnot, but I uh you know I'm a creator at heart. Indeed. Um, do you what makes do you have you dug into why all of a sudden there's been this huge interest?

SPEAKER_00 8:30

No, like we have, and we can't find the answer. So not just no, that was a pretty boring response if we do it on a podcast. Um, we haven't absolutely been able to put our finger on what happened at that point, but you can only assume that someone has stumbled across it that's shared it, and then obviously sharing is the key. And uh, it was a really cool little fun video that I absolutely love. And the Wombat pub unfortunately closed down not long after that. So, I mean, like the whole reason why we're doing this thing uh kind of backfired on us, but it's open again, so the Wombat pub is open again, and I would recommend everyone going out and checking it out just south of Young in New South Wales.

SPEAKER_01 9:11

It's a ripper, but maybe maybe it would never have come back if you hadn't, you know.

SPEAKER_00 9:16

Who knows? One of the more recent videos we've done was on the Hotel Alexander in Rydal, and what was really sweet and gave me such a nice, warm, fuzzy feeling, and it wasn't just because it had a couple of Scooys, they actually uh called me and said, Listen, we're buying this pub because we've been watching your videos, and we fell in love with the idea of owning a pub in you know, like a little town. And so she was a senator uh and her husband decided this is what he wanted to do, and so now they own a pub, sort of uh just out not too far from Tarana, where we first started this the journey, really. So that's that's a that makes me feel really, really you know, that we are doing something. We are, you know, sort of really pushing the fact that these pubs are so cool, and not only are they so important, but owning one of these is a big responsibility, but it comes with so much upside. Like you become you become the town, more or less. Yeah, yeah. But you become a very important part of that town, and it can um become the custodian, yeah, absolutely. You do, and it become a really significant role in your life, and I think you know they were looking at something to do that was going to be meaningful, and they've certainly found it.

SPEAKER_01 10:33

There was an episode you had, uh I want to say it was Victoria. There was two best mates who said they just had the idea of Oh, yeah, Dalesford. Yep, that's right. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 10:43

Yeah, well, they were lifetime Republicans, and so you know, met in I think everyone has been to the pub across the road from Flinders Station. Oh, the Jackson, uh the Young and Jackson, Young and Jackson, so they met there. One one was the manager and a young kid, both from Country Victoria, and uh they met up, worked there for a few years and went their own ways and sort of ended up coming back together and uh and buying a country pub together.

SPEAKER_01 11:08

And they were yeah, but realizing the responsibility of doing that, that was like we had the experience, right? But then now we've oh hang on, this isn't just running a pub, this is this is fitting in with the community.

SPEAKER_00 11:18

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they uh they obviously went through a pretty serious tragedy uh a couple of years ago, and that was heavy to talk about, and they're still um I still talk to them actually. I still I still talk to uh Camstone, who's the public in there, and he's still dealing with what happened to that pub, that community into himself who was there. And if you obviously, if you're listening, you probably want a few background details. There was a car that went through the beer garden and uh and killed uh killed five people, I think, and he was on on scene as the publican when it happened and had to deal with it, and you know, it's uh it's a tough thing, it's not an easy gig running a pub, and this is obviously one of the more extreme examples of things that you might have to deal with, but you know, they are doing it for the love of the pub and the love of the community, and they love what they do.

SPEAKER_01 12:10

I think as well, with the first thing I've noticed when you when you hit play on one of your videos, it like this may as well be on seven mate or whatever you know what I mean. Like I feel like I feel like I'm sitting on the weekend and I've turned on the TV, and the first thing that's come on, it's a basically a travel show, you know.

SPEAKER_00 12:26

That's speaking to the level of production that you guys are doing, it's a two-man operation and doing online, and a lot of that goes uh a lot of that I have to give credit to Matt Jeffrey who does the Joan, he does he does all of the camera work, I do a little bit of gimbal stuff just to try and you know help out a little bit where I can. But Matt Jeffrey is really uh the workhorse behind the operation. I'm the host, I do a lot of the pre-production, I do the chats, uh, and I don't get me wrong, I mean, I've got a lot of passion for pubs, but he is really the guy and the engine behind the production. So the success of the local is largely on his shoulders, and you know, he really is passionate about it as well. So, I mean, it's just kind of been this amazing partnership that's formed when we both really love pubs, and when we get together, it's sort of like you know, we're not farting around. Yeah, we go there to tell the story, we're not just going there to get on the cans and have a great time because the product would be terrible.

SPEAKER_01 13:26

That's just a byproduct, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:27

Exactly. It's just well, Matt doesn't drink much, so you got a driver. Yeah, mate. Imagine I'm doing a show on pubs and I don't know, oh, I don't like being very much. I don't know whether it'd have the same cut through.

SPEAKER_01 13:39

But with that reach and with that, I guess, level of production and storytelling, what what what is have there been moments where you've been completely caught out by someone who's recognised you, someone who's thanked you for what you're doing?

SPEAKER_00 13:52

No. Great question, Dave. No, mate, no, that was me just taking the risk. Um we do have now like quite a good following in a lot of a lot of pubs follow us because they know that what we're doing, and so we do we do get plenty of messages every week of people saying, Hey, this is what's happening in our local area, or we've just started a pub or we're renovating a pub. Can you guys give us a plug? Which is awesome to be recognised for what we're doing. So like we appreciate that, and really that's why we're doing it. It'll be great to uh sort of be able to do it full time, but it's you know, that's sort of we haven't had uh Seven Mate or uh a few of those come knocking on our door yet.

SPEAKER_01 14:35

But I was just trying to put it on their agenda yet, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:39

But no, a lot of our comments, uh, and we get so many comments, and that's another reason why we keep going when it is you know, you're doing another job and you've got a family, and you're spending three or four hours a night researching and responding to comments. There are so many comments on the little reels that we do on Facebook of people that has like brought back a memory uh of a pub from the past, of you know, the heyday, of when people would all be at the pub in small pubs, and you know that I love that if we can keep doing what we're doing to make someone happy every day, or give them a sort of you know, like, yeah, I remember how good was that, or even better yet, you know what, I'm gonna head to my local tonight and I'm gonna go down and have a beer and catch up with some people. I love that. I love that. And if we can inspire people to do that, and if we can inspire the next generation of people to say, you know what, maybe I don't love my job in the city. Maybe I would like to have a bigger part of the community and find something, find a little bit more meaning. I'm gonna go to the a country area, and if I can, you know, work at a pub. Don't even have to own one, just to be part of that community is something that I find really special.

SPEAKER_01 15:55

Yeah, well, I've got a I've got a friend. Um, actually, I mean, yep, friend. She's co-host of this podcast, Cece. People who people who watch this or listen to this regularly, yeah. Colleague. Um, my colleague Cece has, I mean, yeah, she's in her like late twent late 20s. She's a software developer, like, big city job. She's moved from the US to Australia, she's larger than life, she likes loves, loves the city vibe, and then it's also gone, I want a gap year where I work in a brewery on the coast.

SPEAKER_00 16:20

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 16:20

You know what I mean? And like out over in WA or something. And I think there would be a few people who who love the idea but just don't have the balls to go do it.

SPEAKER_00 16:27

It's it's hard too. Like, you've gotta be, you've gotta be resilient. I've always wanted to own a pub. Always. I've been looking, I've looked at so many pubs, I've nearly bought a couple, or the lease at least, anyway. And I'm so thankful for my beautiful wife, Alyssa, who has always said, Don't you dare. Don't you, you don't have thick enough skin. It's 12 plus hours a day, seven days a week. Yeah, and you are always front and present. You can't have an off day.

SPEAKER_01 17:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:01

And everyone does. And you know, when you're the face of the pub and it's just you, and it's a small pub in the in the country, and you're struggling to stay afloat, you know, you you're working all the time, and you're there, and you're listening to everyone else's problems, and you're you're key. So, I mean, it takes a special kind of person to do that, and I love that we get to go and showcase some of these people who are heart and soul and running these country pubs, and you know, not always making any money, um, but just doing it because they know how important it is.

SPEAKER_01 17:33

Before we get to talking about some of the like you know, specific experiences you've had, um your regional focus, but what about city pubs?

SPEAKER_00 17:41

I I'm not lost on the importance that that city pubs don't have the same amount of importance as regional pubs. Like, that's just not true. It's just that's kind of where we've landed in our space. We like getting out of the city. I'm a country kid. Any chance that I can get, I'll get, but it doesn't mean that I don't love city pubs. Yeah. Like, don't get me wrong, there is a lot of pubs in in Sydney and in other metropolitan areas that I absolutely love.

SPEAKER_01 18:08

You did two up in Balmain this year, I think.

SPEAKER_00 18:10

Well, we went and did two up. Yep, we did two up at Balmain, and there's like what a place to go. Like, just a beautiful, beautiful place. I don't know how many people could afford to live in Balmain anymore anymore, but you know, it'd be a pretty great place if you could live there. Catch the ferry to work in the city, like wow, man. Like, and that was one of the rougher suburbs in Sydney back in the day. Back in the day, not that long ago, as we're here in Piemont at the Piemont Point Hotel, a stunning pub. This was probably one of the rougher suburbs in Sydney and Balmain. Very similar, you know. And now you're on the water, it's absolutely stunning. You can't afford to live here in these beautiful pubs, but at least we're close. Well, I'm close enough to be able to come in and you know hang out here.

SPEAKER_01 18:54

So this is where I've done 10 years of my corporate life.

SPEAKER_00 18:56

Yeah, absolutely. And so, I mean, like, even when I go to Sydney pubs, I do get nostalgic as well, like the Carlisle Castle Hotel in Newtown, which is off King Street, and really not many people who uh would blow in and go out for a night in Newtown would head up to the Carlisle Castle. But that's like a really significant pub and was a proper locals' pub back in the day. And like pubs like that, I love. There's a lot of pubs around where I live that I absolutely adore. Unfortunately, the pub that I bought my house directly behind, which I thought was a wonderful decision at the time. My wife was sort of like, is this why we're buying this house? Which is a wonderful pub that was made famous by Slim Dusty. I'd love to have a beer with Duncan.

SPEAKER_01 19:43

Oh, based on that pub, or based on that.

SPEAKER_00 19:46

Yeah, there's a there is a picture of Slim Dusty on the pub that I share a back fence with, and unfortunately, it's no longer open like many pubs. But uh, there's a lot of good breweries around that area where I live in the St. Peter's sort of area, and um I love going to breweries as well. I've got a mate, Grady, who's uh at Future Brewing, who's just up the road from me, and love going there because it's just a nice, warm, welcoming place, and you can go in there and have a beer, and he's always there. Yeah, but to say good day and have a chat.

SPEAKER_01 20:19

A few of the recent episodes were about the Hop Harvest Festival. Yeah, so now that we've had a bit of space and time and I've had time to think about it, I will say Future Brewing, you had the best beer of the it's the one that I'm still thinking about.

SPEAKER_00 20:31

Yeah, braids, man, good on you, but it's really cool. You can't go there for a session.

SPEAKER_01 20:37

No, no, not when there's seven and a half. That was the first beer of the day on a Sunday, and it was 7.4% or something.

SPEAKER_00 20:43

Yeah, I go I I go there, you know, once once a week, maybe once a fortnight, just to say good day and have a couple of beers. His beers are amazing. Oh, yeah. Like he is I think he's from the south coast as well. I think he's down from uh where you went after the C-word, down from that way. Yeah, from that area, but I also spent a lot of time in California. So he's got a lot of these West Coast IPAs. Yes, makes sense, which is really cool. But I'm not a craft beer guy, I am a pub and person guy. Um it's all about the pub and the people for the local. That's really what what we're about.

SPEAKER_01 21:20

Well, yeah, so you just were saying, like we we talked city pubs, and you said it's a it's obviously the same across the board. Absolutely. The pub behind you has gone, many pubs have gone. Yeah, yeah. So we were sort of talking about it just before we you know turned cameras and microphones on. Um what what what do you think is the kind of solution to stop pubs disappearing? Wow, that's a good thing. That is a bigger question.

SPEAKER_00 21:46

It's a bigger question than my um level of intelligence is capable of answering. It's such a big question. But we do ask, obviously, I'm so interested in when we go out to the and do these stories, is like. What are you struggling with? Insurance is a massive one. Insurance is through the roof. We've got a we've got a story coming up on the Coopernook Hotel in the Mid North Coast, which is a wonderful, beautiful old pub that's flooded twice in the last five years. And I mean, like, it's a huge two-story pub. It's flooded up to the second story. Uh they are uninsurable, they can't insure their pub. Luckily, it's made to withstand it. And every time it floods, the community comes down the hill with buckets and mops and everything because they love this pub so much. And these are the stories that we love telling. I can't wait for it to come out. But there are so many factors. Insurance is a huge one. Everything's changed. You know, we are no longer living in the era where there's a pub on every second corner. We have lost a lot of the older generation who pubs were very much part of their culture. People that came back from World War II and very much needed to go every afternoon to the pub to have a couple of beers to catch up and to and to have a chat with their mates. They're gone. There's almost none of that generation left. So many factors. Technology's a massive factor, agricultural equipment is a massive factor. You used to have a lot of people coming into regional areas to work, and they would prop up pubs because they would be there as sort of like a workforce, a seasonal workforce, and would give the pubs a boost. Now you've got this huge machinery. Culturally, I think drinking is certainly gone down massively in regards to how much Australians drink. And I'm not saying that that's a bad thing, but pubs do serve a role more than just going there to drink and get pissed. But the the cost of running a pub, I think, is is is the big thing. The cost of produce is massive, insurance. And then, of course, you know, beer is really expensive now. Beer is expensive to buy. Really, really the government needs to actually have a look and see what the role of regional pubs do. They do so much. They do so much. They are the last business in many towns that are open. They are the only place where the community gets together. They are the town hall, they are birth, deaths, marriages, wakes. Oh, I get really emotional when uh when I sort of like start to think about all these pubs that close down and what happens to the town. Because I've seen it and it sucks. And when you've got uh a duopoly of um beer manufacturers in the country who are not based here, uh charging through the roof for beer that doesn't cost a huge amount to brew, and the government taking their clip every six months, and you see pubs closing down, it's it's uh yeah, it's not I hate it. I can't believe I haven't had that many beers, but this is why I do the local, you know. This is why I do it. Because I really do feel passionate about um the service that pubs offer regional communities. I really do.

SPEAKER_01 25:19

And it's not even I mean, service almost feels like it's something that um you know someone does in exchange for something, it's yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:26

It's more than that, right? Oh, way more than that. It's family, you know, you're you're the it's village. It is village. You're part of it, you're living it every day.

SPEAKER_01 25:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:36

When there's a bad season, you're hurt. When there's a bushfire, you stay open, you support the community. When one of your locals die, uh you're there to put an arm around the entire community. That's what you do as a country publican.

SPEAKER_01 25:52

I think with how much this is obviously important to you, right? And it's and it's great that you are willing to be vulnerable about this. Yeah. Because you're obviously someone who's um in touch and and very much so, right? And and yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:08

Now I cry, I cry in the videos all the time. Yeah, but that's but that's beautiful, and you know what?

SPEAKER_01 26:13

And but we but we need more when particularly men, we need more men crying in videos. We need more people to say, hey mate, don't don't hold it, right? Yeah, but this ties in exactly to the point is that like we need that place for blokes, yeah. I mean for everyone, for everyone. I know we kind of but we need that like how how is where's a bloke gonna feel he can say something?

SPEAKER_00 26:38

Yeah, absolutely. If he's if he's in a regional town, and loneliness is probably the biggest um health drama that's facing Australia and particularly older Australians and in particular regional areas again, like when you don't have anywhere to go and you don't have anywhere to chat, you sit at home, you go crazy, nothing to do, no one to talk to. If you're out working the fields all day, you're sort of like, you know, what do you do at the end of the day? And say, you know, you've got nowhere to go, you kind of got nothing, you've got nowhere to sort of get things off your chest and know that other people are struggling as well, and just to have someone to chat to is a massively important thing.

SPEAKER_01 27:18

Yeah, it it feels like it feels like the government doesn't need to go, oh, we just need to make beer more accessible for people to people get drunk. It's it's it's it's it's no, we're kind of heading into a dead end into some of our greatest bits of community.

SPEAKER_00 27:31

Absolutely, there's no doubt about it. Uh like you look at a place like Bar Medmon uh in the Riverina, and there's two ginormous, beautiful old pubs that sit there closed, boarded up, looking at each other, and a dwindling population of of people with uh nowhere to go and nothing to do, and there's no other businesses open in town. There's you know, what do you do? You you leave, you go somewhere else, you go to another town that's got a pub open or some somewhere with uh you know a little bit of a future. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:05

Well, sorry about that. No, don't do not apologize. That is exactly the point of this. Is I mean, yeah, I think we sit on a parallel. It's exactly the the reason why I wanted to do this in itself.

SPEAKER_00 28:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:18

Um, and I that this is a great, like, I don't know, crossover is the word, I don't know. Like, you're essentially embodying all the things that I was I really wanted to kind of tell, and I'm on kind of on a different path, I suppose. And I just it's important to have these conversations. And you I know you go, I might feel a bit stupid, I got emotional about the pub. We but we need to get emotional about the pub, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:39

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And um it's easy to be stoic until it's too late and you're sitting at home depressed, and you're absolutely, you know, at a loss. Yeah. Uh so you know, we're not scared of going and shining a light on going out and visiting these little communities and showing what they're all about and showing how important they're about. But getting back to your Sydney question, I mean, this exists here as well. Yeah, there are pubs, Perth, Adelaide, everywhere that serve the exact same purpose that people go to and get stuff off their chest and just somewhere to go. You don't even need to go there and have a bee, go and have a heaps normal, go and have go and have a lemonade and a meal and catch up with your mates. And there are a lot of um people that are doing uh a lot of great things like the Tough Guy Book Club. Um, you've heard of those.

SPEAKER_01 29:30

We've talked about that on the podcast, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:32

So cool! Like, I really would love to go and do an episode of that. But the point that I make about regional Australia is um if a pub closes down in the middle of Sydney, you know, you could probably go find another pub. Pub closes down in the middle of when there's one uh Left and you know, somewhere out west, you know.

SPEAKER_01 29:50

It's well it's not even that town, it might be like that town in a neighbouring two or three. Yeah, yeah, it's true. Um this is probably the first time this has happened in the podcast where I'm gonna go or on the show, I should say. Yeah. Um first time it's happened on the show where I'm gonna say, I think we should I had a few other I wanted to talk to some more of the um places that you've been to. Yeah. I want to like recharge the glass, take a moment, and then come back.

SPEAKER_00 30:15

Ready to go. I might go and have a comfort break.

SPEAKER_01 30:17

Comfort break. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Alright, well we'll yeah, we'll we'll part two of this will come up. Let's talk about some of the places you've been to if you're if you're around it.

SPEAKER_00 30:25

Mate, um I I can do this. You know, I love doing this. Yeah, it's it's why I think um it's not fake. What we do isn't just like, oh, let's go and be creative, let's go and you know, get a YouTube channel and a Facebook and a water to have a couple of beers. Yeah, as an excuse to go and have a couple of beers. I I kind of felt like we fell into it, and now it's um definitely so authentic. Yeah. Is what we do, and I think that's probably the reason why we have had a reasonable amount of success and hopefully more to come.

SPEAKER_01 30:56

Alright, let's take a comfort break. How good is Tim? And this is gonna seem like the world's longest comfort break because we are gonna do this in two parts. So if you are up to date and watching, listening to this live, you're gonna have to wait another week. Otherwise, yeah, put them back to back, and I really hope you come back for episode two because we're gonna talk more specifically some of the great hubs that have touched Tim over the years. Uh, thank you so much to him. Thank you to the local and the work that Matt does. Uh stick around for part two. Make sure you do the things like like and subscribe so you can know when the next episode comes out. Um, get in touch, you can DM us, let us know where you're listening and watching from, send us an email, hello at channeltap.com. Tell us about your local if you've got some great stories or uh something you think that we should cover, then let us know. But we will see you next week. Project