Grazing

Grazing is a restaurant steeped in history. Situated on the corner of Harp and Cork Streets in Gundaroo, it’s housed inside ‘The Royal Hotel’ – a building that was opened in 1865 by local William Affleck after an abundance of European settlement was occurring in the area. Ironically, Affleck, a committed church goer, promoted abstinence from alcohol. But if Gundaroo was to be recognised as a prominent town in the area, he knew he needed to put his views aside and offer a venue to replenish new locals and travellers coming to and from Sydney. The Royal was a traveller’s inn and became a meeting place and an unofficial town hall, being closely associated with the development of the Gundaroo area. After a few decades of new owners, plenty of ups and downs – once being referred to as a place in which you wouldn’t sell a bottle of whisky in a month – and perhaps even serving as a partial post office, The Royal was the sole surviving licensed hotel in the region. That was until 1928 when the license was transferred to a new Hotel Queanbeyan and it became a private dwelling.