PHAR LAP sits quietly outside, ready to take his 80-year-old owner "Dutchy" Brown home after a couple of beers - but only if the retiree cannot convince a certain gorgeous blonde barmaid to give him a lift instead. Watch our audio slideshow.

Dutchy is a bit of a hoon apparently, hence the racehorse nickname for his electric chair and he is not slow when it comes to the ladies either, admitting to being in love with the hotel owner’s 24-year-old barmaid daughter Renee Simpson.

"I’m waiting to see if she is left on the shelf," he laughs with a cheeky grin. "If she is, I would marry her.

"She drives me home when I have had too much and that is a sign of a good girl, plus she is a stunner."

When cyclone Yasi hit the Far North, Dutchy spent the night bunkered down in the pub’s toilet and says in the past 20 years he has not had a drink anywhere else in town.

It’s a similar line with most of the drinkers at the horse-shoe shaped bar

"How long have I been coming to this place? Well, I don’t think I ever left," says Ken "Higgo" Higgens.

"It’s been about 60 years, since I was 17 years old. It is the best pub in town, plus I live just down the road.

"It used to be wild here a few years back. You would get the canecutters, the rail workers and the Goondi Mill workers here all at the same time.

"The cane cutters used to come over in pushbike gangs, crowds of ’em, but it’s nice and clean now – a bit quieter but really nice.

"The new owners have done a lot to it, it was just another old neglected pub awhile ago but now it’s been transformed."

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No one knows how old the Goondi Hill Hotel is; a cyclone in 1918 blew away the Innisfail Shire Council building and most of the records with it so owners Trevor and Gail Simpson have not been able to find out. However, the consensus at the bar is at "least 100."

There used to be stables out the back behind what is now the bottle-o where a local kept his racehorse and lead pony according to Higgo.

"He used to lead the horses through the streets," he said.

"There wasn’t much traffic in the streets back then. Every now and then if he had a win he would bring his pony to the bar for a beer – only if he was feeling rich, though."

These days the pub is better known for great food and upstairs accommodation.

It has had a complete makeover since Gail and Trevor, better known as "Simmo" took over almost six years ago and the modern looking interior and furniture belies its alleged age.

"We saw the potential even though it was really run down," says Simmo.

"We figured the only way it could go was up so we grabbed it and pretty much gutted the place and started fresh.

"It is a bit of a family affair these days with our whole family working here – my wife and my kids Renee and Todd.

"My family has been in the hotel business for years, my parents used to own Hotel Tully so it is in the blood.

"We are well known for good food, raffles and of course, the service," says Gail. "And the crazy characters. This is one place you will always hear a good yarn and if you are a regular you might even get a ride home."

>> You can land a helicopter on the pub’s concrete slab roof which has one of the best views of Innisfail.
>> The pub has survived at least two massive cyclones — Larry and Yasi with only minor damage.
>> During Yasi more than 20 people bunkered down in the hotel, with one man sleeping in the men’s toilets after owner Trevor Simpson secured the building by backing up forklifts and pallet trucks against the doors and welding the bottle-o roller doors shut with cattle rails.
>> The pub is famous for its good value menu that features massive steaks and fresh local seafood. Keno and Friday night raffles also attract the crowds.
>> Years ago a bloke had a .22 sitting on the bar, when the barman asked him to put it on the floor it went off, blowing a hole in the ceiling.
>> The latest owners Trevor and Gail Simpson completely gutted the pub and gave it a makeover after buying it almost six years ago, three weeks before cyclone Larry.

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