Tully Heard Consulting’s Acre operation at Canterbury-Hurlstone Park RSL’s Camperdown Commons will close in May after five years of serving hobby farm-to-table food to Sydney’s inner west.
Tully Heard transformed the old Camperdown Bowling Club site into Acre, an urban farm and 350-seat eatery in 2016, which used fresh seasonal ingredients harvested on the property.
Since opening at Camperdown, Tully Heard has expanded the Acre concept, opening two new venues, one which includes a hydroponic farm, in Artarmon on Sydney’s Lower North Shore, and last year another ‘farmhouse restaurant’ on top of Burwood Brickworks in suburban Melbourne. It also slotted in The Growers into Worrigee Sports on the NSW South Coast last year.
“We have been fortunate to have served the Camperdown community and beyond for the past five years – serving up food that’s fun, honest and delicious from our little patch of green,” said a statement on Acre’s Facebook page.
Acre Group’s original Camperdown location will close in May. With the departure of Acre as the site’s hospitality operator, Pocket City Farms said the space will be seeing some “very exciting new changes” to be announced soon. The urban farm is, and always has been, a separate entity to Acre, and operates as a social enterprise to encourage more community-oriented farming in Sydney.
But Tully Heard hasn’t let the grass grow of late either, opening a new cafe and bakery called Acrette after purchasing 822 George St, Chippendale, the old Saint George site once occupied by now pub and club consultant chef James Metcalfe of JRM Hospitality.
“Acrette is a neat addition to the group we have been looking at for some time,” said Tully Heard MD Luke Heard. “It has been created to complement the ongoing success of the self-operated, longer-lease and larger footprints of other Acre Group properties.”
Tully Heard is well known in the club space, having guided Gosford RSL through its master planning strategy and it was also engaged by Bankstown Sports on the Club’s $80m Flinders Centre commercial office tower development.