Business
29 May, 2024
End of an era as Dajarra Roadhouse owner sells up
Adrian Cooney has left a lasting legacy in the tiny Outback town.
Adrian Cooney stood by the highway at Dajarra in 1991 and looked at the roadhouse frame- it was a handful of empty transportable dongas.
The ageing buildings were accompanied by account books that had bankrupted the previous
owner. But, no matter the odds, Adrian was certain he could create a viable business.
“The building had been sitting there vacant for four years – the previous owner had gone bankrupt,” Adrian’s son, Shane Cooney told North West Weekly.
“Everyone warned Adrian he’d be broke in 12 months if he bought it, but he thought he was getting a steal for the price and so he decided to buy it anyway. He bought it and he signed his life away to that business.
“Someone said you need a big heart and a strong will to win to make a success in a business such as the Dajarra Roadhouse and I think he showed that.”
Adrian’s business mantra had always been simple: clean glasses, full fridges, reliable hours and a lot of hard work.
It was a formula that paid off.
Over the past 33 years Adrian and the Dajarra Roadhouse became a fixture for North West travellers – some might remember Adrian pulling a trailer load of store stock along Boulia-Mount Isa highway; others might have seen him at one of the region’s airstrips with his beloved Cherokee Six light aircraft – but most locals would have crossed paths at some point with the dry witted gentleman behind the counter at the roadhouse.
All chapters in life must come to an end, and after more than three decades, the Cooney family has pulled up stumps in Dajarra, selling the roadhouse earlier this month as 83-year-old Adrian enjoys a well-earned retirement in Mackay.
Born in Cunnamulla and raised on Werai Park station near Eulo, Adrian went into the hospitality business from a young age, managing the Birdsville Hotel, Eulo Queen Hotel and the Windorah General Store before operating two snack bars and two taxi services in Brisbane.
When crippling interest rates and a pilot’s dispute froze his income in the late 1980s, Adrian began looking for greener pastures which he found in the looming drought-ridden North West.
Operating an essential service such as a roadhouse in an isolated corner of the Outback can be a thankless and unforgiving job – 12-hour days, seven days a week.
Adrian could spend months and even years operating the business alone – serving jointly as chief cook, tyre fitter, motel operator and cashier – while at other times he was assisted by a flow of backpackers, many of whom he remained in contact and still exchange holiday cards.
His son said it was the community of Dajarra, the mateship from the people of the North West and the constant casual yet humour-filled yarns from drivers and workers travelling through that kept him going during years of flood, drought, booms and busts.
“He is just a true old-fashioned gentleman. It didn’t matter if it was in the middle of the night, he would always be willing to give someone a hand – he would reopen the shop for a stranded traveller or truckie or he would lend someone something they needed. He was always a gentleman,” said Shane.
As the cruel fate of dementia began to take hold of Adrian in recent years, Shane and his partner Mandy increasingly took the reigns of the business – making needed repairs to the roadhouse and motel, finding reliable staff, keeping the glasses clean and the fridges full.
With Ardmore Phosphate Mine and Punchey’s Earthmoving providing a steady stream of workers to stay at the motel, the roadhouse had two of its best years of income, which provided solid financial books to sell the roadhouse to returned local Scott Punch.
Shane said his family wished Scott all the best as the roadhouse story enters a new chapter.
“Scotty knows the business and he knows the area – there is still loads of potential in that roadhouse – if they run it right, they can’t go wrong,” he said.
Many have asked how Adrian is doing these days, Shane reports he is in a comfortable home close to Mackay’s CBD, with the pool and a yard of concrete ground.
“He has always liked plenty of concrete because he never wanted to mow the lawn.”