By Brendan Rees
Kelly’s Motor Club Hotel in Cranbourne has proved a soaring success after celebrating big wins at Australian Hotels Association state awards for excellence.
The hotel took out the overall regional hotel of the year and best casual dining, in front of 1200 guests and professionals of the hotel industry during a gala dinner at The Palladium at Crown on Tuesday 21 November.
Hotel manager Michael Goldie said the team was “gobsmacked” to receive hotel of the year.
“We were rapt at winning the best casual dining. Everyone thought ‘how good is this’. Then to get the overall hotel we were gobsmacked. After that we couldn’t believe it. We were blown away by winning Best Regional Hotel.
“It was a total surprise when we won it.”
Mr Goldie, an employee of 40 years with Kelly’s Motor Club Hotel said: “We’re a local pub and we want to stay a pub. We don’t really go for the gastropub. We still think we’re still basically a pub.”
He said the hotel took pride in supporting the Cranbourne community.
“We are extremely proud to be a part of Cranbourne’s history and feel our winning contributes positively to our community.”
He said there were close to 90 staff employed with the hotel – “a great percentage local, a great percentage young and a great percentage pursuing further education”.
He said the hotel was also the largest supplier of scholarships in Cranbourne with “$50,000 to local schools this Christmas”.
“Basically 10 primary schools get $5000 each. This is used to help the parents transition their kids into secondary education.
“We’ve been doing this for over 20 years. We also assist various sporting, charity, volunteer, church and retirement homes, to mention a few.
“We have no particular demographic, catering for seniors, millennials, tradies and vast and varied groups. We’re also pretty popular with private functions.”
He said the menu was modern Australian and embraced parmas, seafood, steaks with European, Asian and American influenced dishes.
“We are a pub, we encourage casual dining and our motto is ‘It’s more fun to eat at Kelly’s than drink in a restaurant!’”
The judges noted an emphasis on investment in staff training and infrastructure at this year’s awards which resulted in a large number of overall finalists in many of the 40 categories.
