A NEW room at Bendigo's Lake View Hotel on McCrae Street has the 'wow' factor owners Amanda Fowler and Danny McGrath hoped for.
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On Tuesday the pair officially unveiled their new venue room 'Fig & Fowl'; a cosy, paired-back function room at the front of the hotel serving breakfast and lunch from 7am through to about 3pm.
Mr McGrath said the reason behind the new room and its breakfast focus was simple enough - to do something with a point of difference.
"The reason we've done it is because pubs are hard; doing lunches is a dying breed. Breakfast is a big thing now," he said.
He said exposed brick in the venue was to "bring a bit of the old back, a bit of an almost rustic feel".
Mr McGrath said other things such as the room's lighting, which he had designed with the help of an electrician, also added to the room.
"There's a real impact when people walk in the room," he said.
"People walk in and because it's so different from the rest of pub, there's a bit of a wow factor.
"That's been best part of it, the first reaction when they walk in."
He said since he and Amanda took over running the pub in May last year, the pair knew they had to do something different and, rather than sit on it for too long, they got to work in summer.
"It was quiet in January, we didn't have plans or designs done, we just did it ourselves on the fly," he said.
In preparation, the pair cordoned area of an area of the pub over summer and encouraged punters to make use of the pub's beer garden.
He said the name was chosen "because it had a nice ring to it", and because the pub wanted to incorporate some of what they were trying to do with food in the pub.
"We use a lot of local produce, we're trying to represent a bit about what we do," he said.
He said he had to thank the pub's award-winning chef Peter McLeod, who was also heavily involved in Fig and Fowls' style and menu.
"He's been a big part of plans and what we're doing here at the pub," he said.