The Crown for the Queen of the Murchison

Parer’s Crown Hotel, Cue, is one of the most popular resorts for visitors and residents of the town at which to make their home while on the fields. The name of Parer Bros is well known to everyone who has ever been in Melbourne and is a guarantee of all that is good in the catering line. When t’othersiders, and especially Victorians, see the name, in front of the house on Austin street, and know that Messrs. Parer and Casas themselves have come up to Cue and are personally attending to the business and looking after the comfort of their guests, they will be at once satisfied that everything will be done to make their visit a pleasant one and a good table, as nearly in the Melbourne style as possible, will be laid for them three times a day.

The Crown Hotel Cue – 1897

When Mr. Arthur Bower first built the Crown Hotel over three years ago, many people said it was a long way out of town, so small was the little settlement of Cue at that time, but from the first it became popular, and when Mr. Tom Williams, whom the diggers of Kimberley all know so well, took possession, the popularity of the house was established and has stayed with it ever since. The town has grown so rapidly that at present the Crown Hotel is in the very busiest part of Cue, and being opposite the west end of Darlot street is quite close to the site of the new railway station shortly to be built. It is a few months only since Messrs. Parer and Casas took over the business, but already extensive structural alterations and additions have been made. A new stone front has been erected and the dining hall enlarged and carried forward level with the street, for comfort and convenience, the Crown can hold its own with the best-appointed hotels of Perth or any town in the colony.

The Crown Hotel, Cue – Dining Room – 1897

There is good bedroom accommodation for 40 visitors, the dining room, however, provides seating space for over 100, and the tables are fully occupied at every meal. The charges at the Crown are most moderate, especially when one considers the high price for vegetables and supplies of all sorts at such a great distance, 250 miles, from the coast. Board and lodging is £2 per week only, single meals are a modest 2s, and a very good system of meal tickets has been started by the proprietors whereby 21 meals may be had for thirty shillings at such times as the holder of the ticket may wish.

Murchison Times and Day Dawn Gazette 28 October 1897, page 3

The house contains both public and private bars, with four well-arranged parlors. There is a large and well patronised billiard room, with one of Alcock’s tables, considered by judges of the game to be the best in Cue. The bathrooms are situated in the rear of the hotel, where a good shower with an abundance of fresh water is always on hand. The stabling accommodation is of the best. In fact, everything possible has been done by the present proprietors to make the Crown Hotel second to none on the goldfields by strict attention to the wants and the comforts of guests, supplying them with the very best brands only of wines and spirits in the bars, and by setting the best table in town before them.

The dining room serves in the evenings as a concert hall, where twice a week instrumental music, with songs and piano accompaniments, while away the tedium of the night from tea till bedtime. Chess, draughts, and dominoes will be available for their patrons at separate tables and a real good evening is placed within the reach of all. It may be added that Messrs. Parer and Casas make a specialty of banquets, dinners, and catering in all its branches, in which line their long experience in Melbourne and elsewhere is a guarantee of excellence and satisfaction.

Another hotel owned by Parer – The Albion, Burt Street, Boulder.