Royal Hotel Taree

After the one-off Royal in Bungendore it was time again for a proper full leg of the tour. This one took us up to the Mid-North Coast of New South Wales. The first stop: the Royal Hotel Taree.

We had a fairly early morning departure to head up the coast so we rolled into Taree right around lunch time. Most of that trip up it was hammering down pretty hard. So it was a pleasant surprise when the skies finally started to brighten up as we pulled up and grabbed a park on the main street. Literally before we had even stepped out of the car, a friendly local had attempted to hit John up for a spare cigarette.

Maybe partially because of that welcome to town and partially because of the stock standard, slightly drab exterior, I wasn’t holding out high hopes for the Royal Hotel Taree. But I was to be surprised. Walking in, the first thing you hit is a classic front bar area. It’s got the requisite old school bar (with a resident Taree-an propping up one end), pool table with Royal-branded felt, and the dulcet tones of the first of multiple covers of Cotton-Eye Joe playing on the sound system. Funnily enough, we never did here the classic original, just several stripped back country covers.

Before settling down in the front bar, we wandered through the rest of the pub to do a bit more recon. Beyond the front bar area was a big bistro area with some decent looking food as well. But beyond that was, for my money, the best part of the pub: the back deck.

The deck overlooks the Manning River and our timing couldn’t have been better. The window of sunshine meant that we had the deck to ourselves. And that clearing rain meant we got to enjoy our first schooners of the trip with views of a rainbow over the river. In warmer weather, this would have been the perfect place to wile away a lazy Sunday arvo with a beverage or two.

Unfortunately our window of sun didn’t last long and it shortly started hammering down again. So we retreated inside and ordered some lunch. There were a bunch of $14 lunch specials and the Thai beef wrap was pretty damn good. And after 5 hours in the car, it was good to just sit and have a schooner. And this was a pretty good place to do just that.

While the unique award for the Royal Hotel Taree could have easily been along the lines of Royal of Rainbows and Cotton Eye Joes, on our way out we noticed what would ultimately give this pub it’s title. The breakfast menu (not super common on the Tour) looked absolutely fantastic. Just a bit of a bummer that this didn’t end up being one of those pubs that we awkwardly rock up to at 10am.

All in all, the Royal Hotel Taree was a good solid Royal. It’s unlikely to trouble the Top 10 list. But it’s comfortably in the top half of the Royals we’ve hit so far on the tour. Definitely worth a visit if you happen to be passing through Taree.

Royal Stats

• Town/Suburb: Taree, NSW
• Population: 26,381
• Date Visited: Friday, July 5, 2024
• Visited By: Cory, John and Anthony
• Beer Sponsorship on Sign: None
• Beer Consumed at Pub: Tooheys New
• Price of Schooner of Said Beer: $7.50
• Unique Award: Royal with the Best Breakfast Menu
• Tour Progress: 43.1% (59/137)