Paddy Coughlan, owner of Cringila's Five Islands Hotel, tips the area to become something special

But that's the starting point for Paddy Coughlan when he's considering whether to lay out the money to buy a pub.

He walks in, orders a beer and then takes a seat.

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"That's exactly how you do it," Coughlan says.

"It's the initial experience - just go there as a punter, have a beer, see how they're doing things and make some assumptions on whether you think you can add some value."

It's an approach he would have used when weighing up whether to purchase the Five Islands Hotel in Cringila for $20.7 million.

It's not the first pub he's owned, nor will it be the last.

Previously, he linked up with investors led by John Singleton and bought a number of pubs in Sydney just as the world was coming out of the global financial crisis - deciding to offload them in 2019.

Then the one-time BRW rich-lister bought a few on his own before becoming CEO of Ludlow Hospitality, a pub fund that counts some very wealthy New York families as investors.

The fund has around $200 million to spend - which Coughlan aims to use to snap up another 10 pubs over the next year or so.

Pubs have a solid spot in Australian history, with plenty of people choosing to spend quite a few hours there. While he's also partial to a beer, the appeal for Coughlan is much greater - pubs seem to be able to take whatever the world can dish out and just keep going along.

As long as you're getting the land the pub sits on as well, it's hard to find a better thing to throw your money at.

"It's just an extremely resilient business, which has never been more evident than with COVID," he says

"There's been two lockdowns, in 2020 and 2021 and there couldn't be any more affected sector except maybe tourism and airlines.

"On both occasions lockdown happens for three months and we open the doors and trade is back to pre-lockdown levels.

"It was already a resilient industry. You think about all the regulatory challenges over the years, going back as far as drink-driving when it first came in, then no smoking inside.

"Over the years there has been all these regulatory challenges in the pub and the pub sector remains successful.

"This latest one, COVID, it's almost like it's reminded everyone what a phenomenally resilient business it is to be involved in."

Born in Sydney, Coughlan was christened Patrick, though no-one ever calls him that. Not even family.

Males named Patrick run in this Irish family, so to tell them apart, they have nicknames handed down to them.

His dad was a Patrick though he was known as Patsy to all and sundry, Coughlan scored Paddy while his son - also a Patrick - is the only one who gets to be known by that name

"It's a bit of an Irish thing," Coughlan says.

He grew up in Bowral before heading to Sydney as an adult, where he still lives.

He fell into the pub business because he wasn't very good at school, and then just stayed there because he found it's a social business that suited his outgoing personality.

As an owner, the job has a little bit of everything - retail, HR, marketing, account management, serving customers. And he's been known to do all of them - even the last one.

"I've always been a hands-on owner," he says.

"I like to know our customers. I like to know our staff. I like to pull a beer every now and again and I like having a beer in our establishments."

The already-refurbished Five Islands Hotel is the first pub purchased with that $200 million war chest. While Cringila may not be the top suburb on most people's list when looking to buy a pub - or anything else - it fits with one of Coughlan's key criteria.

And that is, look for a pub in a place where the demographic is changing - and then target that demographic.

For Coughlan, the Cringila area is one that had been unjustly overlooked by many in Wollongong.

"I really like Cringila - I think there's a real good growth story around Cringila and Port Kembla," he says.

"I think it's a little pocket of Wollongong that seems to get a bad rap yet there's a great community feel and they've got some of the nicest beaches that I've ever seen.

"Port Kembla in particular has some great cafes and there's one small bar that's about to open on the main street of Port Kembla.

"There's the green shoots of something happening down in this area. I like when that's happening. I like that feeling, I've had a lot of experience with that type of stuff before."

And he's well aware of the pub's history of topless waitresses and strippers.

"I wish I had a dollar for every time someone asked that," he says.

While he has no intention of bringing those ladies back to the hotel there was no shame in the pub's somewhat seedy past.

"There's nothing for me to be ashamed of - I wasn't the one putting them on," he says.

"I love that it's got that history - pubs are a part of the fabric of Australia," he said.

"On a macro level it's part of our history and on a micro level it's part of this pub's history."

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