RESTAURANT

MENU

PRICES

Old Willows Brewery Restaurant of 1992 is built on the ruin of its predecessor which was opened in the small township of Pichi Pichi in 1880.

The town was situated in what is no known as Pichi Pichi Pass at the foot of Devils Peak 10 kilometres south of Quorn. In its heyday there were two hotels, two breweries, a General Store with attached Post Office and of course the Railway which was the towns lifeline. This section of railway was completed in 1879.

The original Willow Brewery was described as a first class stone building and it was built in such a way that it could be added to if there was an increase in trade. On the land there was a well that supplied the brewery with an infinite supply of good quality water suitable for brewing.

The Railway Authority were unable to build a siding at Pichi Richi because of the landscape, the ‘grade was too steep’. This resulted in the town’s demise and the brewery’s closure. By 1887 the Brewery was a ruin.

In the 1980s Robert and Wendy Brown took up the land upon which the crumbled remains of the once former fine brewery building was situated.

It was these remains which spurned the idea of its reconstruction to equally fine building of today known as Old Willows Brewery Restaurant.

The long restoration programme took eighteen months using stone from the original site, dumped old squared UK stones from the ballast of sailing ships, old beams, railway sleepers and recycled items such as doors, seats, wrought iron panels, church pews, tables, hotel bar cabinets and paving slate.

Today the Pichi Richi Railway Preservation Society sill run trains along the original track which passes just metres from the feature window in the Restaurant.