Murray View No. 42. The Hotel Metropole, Launceston, Tas.
1930s
Publisher: Murray VIews, Gympie, Queensland
Built as the Launceston Coffee Palace (opening 1882), also known as Sutton’s Coffee Palace and Metropole Coffee Palace. Demolished 1976.
Prominent amongst the new erections will be a three-storey building in Brisbane-street, opposite the Brisbane Hotel, for Mr S. J. Sutton. In this Mr Sutton intends to carry on the business of a first-class coffee palace, similar to that in Collins street, Melbourne, and the establishment will be denominated the “Launceston Coffee Palace.” Mr Sutton has recently returned from a visit to Victoria, where he has had ample opportunity of observing the management of coffee houses, and intends to adopt the style of the Collins-street Coffee Palace.
The internal arrangements of the coffee palace will be very complete. The entrance hall, 8ft wide, will be in the centre of the frontage, and a shop will be provided on either side. On each side of the hall will be the public rooms, consisting of a coffee-room, commercial-room, smoking-room, and ladies’ dining-room, a special feature of the arrangements being that these rooms are readily accessible to the public, instead of being placed in some out-of-the-way part of the house. The public dining-room will be across the end of the hall, and will be an apartment 36ft long by 19ft wide. There will also be a kitchen, pantry, and bake-house in the rear. The second storey will comprise, in addition to the arcade already mentioned, two commodious par lours and nine bedrooms, four of the latter being 16ft by12ft, and the remaining five smaller apartments. The third storey will contain sixteen bedrooms. The building will be fitted with bathrooms and other conveniences, and there will be fire escape from the rear of the second flat. Every attention will be paid to ventilation, such sleeping apartments as will not containg fireplaces having flues leading from the floor to the top of the parapet.
The Launceston Coffee Palace will be built of brick with a cement front and iron roof, and Mr Sutton expects it will be completed and ready for occupation in November.
Launceston Examiner, 21 May 1881
The new coffee palace being built by Mr S. Sutton is making rapid progress, and is already being roofed, and will be ready for occupation by the 1st of December next. The architecture of the elevation is of a highly pleasing style, looking both light and graceful, while the building is really a very substantial peace of work. The basement is divided into two shops, coffee-room, smoking-room, commercial-room, ladies dining-room, and large dining hall. These rooms are lofty and commodious, and are divided by a spacious hall 8ft. wide, with a large staircase as near the front of- the house as possible. Overhead are 27 bedrooms and two bath-rooms, and in the rear a large- kitchen and pantry are yet to be built, also a ten-stalled stable. The new bake-house at the rear has a steam boiler, and machinery for making biscuits, besides other patent appliances of recent invention.
Telegraph, 20 August 1881
Brisbane Street, 1897-99, with the Launceston Coffee Palace second from the corner. (Photo from the Archives Office of Tasmania1897-99.)
A change has taken place in the management of one of the most important city establishments, the Metropole Coffee Palace, Brisbane-street, where on Saturday Mr W. Hunt, formerly for very many years chief steward on the Pateena, took over control from Alderman S. J. Sutton
2 September 1901