HSA July 2023
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P U B L I C A N P R O F I L E<br />
Allen and Daniel with Premiership<br />
Cup at The Grove Tavern.<br />
Allen dressed as Santa.<br />
“Over the years, many people have<br />
come to me and said, ‘oh they’re<br />
running out of land at Golden Grove’<br />
but they keep finding more land.<br />
“Even now, they’re talking about 500<br />
houses going up the road again.<br />
“When I used to drive Daniel to<br />
school, I used to drive past sheep<br />
in the paddocks, now there’s all<br />
houses there.”<br />
Although once bitten, the Cassins<br />
knew they couldn’t be twice shy<br />
about taking a punt on the Grove with<br />
the imminent arrival of gaming in SA.<br />
It was a gamble that paid off in<br />
spades when they were offered the<br />
freehold of the pub within two years<br />
by the Hickinbotham Group, who<br />
even financed them at a friendly<br />
interest rate to take it.<br />
But nothing worth having comes<br />
that easily.<br />
TACTICAL ‘WARFARE’<br />
The Cassins stumbled head first<br />
into fresh challenges in their new<br />
venture.<br />
“It was a gamble that paid off in<br />
spades when they were offered the<br />
freehold of the pub within two years by<br />
the Hickinbotham Group... But nothing<br />
worth having comes that easily.”<br />
They had a vision for what they<br />
wanted their pub to look like and<br />
it didn’t include the bikies who<br />
frequented it.<br />
Persuading them to move on<br />
resembled tactical warfare –<br />
replacing the beer cans they liked<br />
with stubbies, removing the posts<br />
from the front of the pub where they<br />
parked their bikes, slowly weeding<br />
out their girlfriends from serving as<br />
bar staff, and replacing the entire<br />
female bar staff with men.<br />
Eventually, the bikies disappeared in<br />
disgust… but so too did the cash flow.<br />
“We didn’t sleep at night for a while,”<br />
recalled Gina, who was equally<br />
concerned about retribution.<br />
“After we got rid of the bikies, there<br />
was a lull and you thought, ‘this is<br />
not working’ for probably six months<br />
or a bit longer. I was worried about<br />
it but the business did come back,”<br />
Allen said.<br />
“We put in things like Schnitzels<br />
Plus which is a really family-themed<br />
restaurant, there were about 20<br />
schnitzel toppings you could choose<br />
from, a salad bar, a dessert bar, and<br />
we had Playstations for the kids<br />
too,” Daniel explained.<br />
“And then we put in live music which<br />
is something we still have today.<br />
“Some days, even as the operator,<br />
you think, ‘am I overspending here?’.<br />
“But it’s worth it, even just having a<br />
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