Prahran Hotel to reopen

The Sand Hill Road boys may sound like bushrangers or a bluegrass band but, in fact, are serial pub renovators. They bought the Prahran Hotel in early 2011, and will reopen it this Friday after eight months of hefty reconstruction. The group also owns Richmond's The Bridge Hotel, Richmond Club Hotel, Holliava and Post Office Bar Pizza. At the Prahran Hotel, they had city-based architects Techne design the space, utilising concrete irrigation pipes, each about 2.5 metres in diameter, sitting four pipes high. Co-owner of the pub, Matt Mullins, says to his knowledge this kind of construction has never been done before. ''We asked Techne for two designs, one normal and one wild, and we went with the wild,'' Mullins says. ''The food and drink offering will stick to the Sand Hill Road formula that Mullins describes as ''all about a community pub. Over time our design has evolved but the offering is the same: there's beers on tap and always a parma and a steak.'' It's a pipe dream come true.

Hilary McNevin