Greg Targett said he is here to make hard decisions. He was a publican in Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory for years and owned his first hotel in the Territory in 1988 when he was 20.

“I started off in club land in Sydney in the early ‛90s,” he said.

An accountant by trade, he did a five-year course in hospitality management.

He runs Publicans on Tap, a business that has provided emergency fill-in publicans for more than 80 pubs.

Now in ‛semi-retirement’, he lives in Yamba and is the new chief executive of Club Evans.

He sees the club as having “limitless potential”.

“There are two pillars of business to a club – the manager and the chef,” Greg said.

“If both are strong, magic happens.”

He brought his Tennant Creek chef with him to Evans Head and yesterday a new menu was launched.

“We’re using fresh, local produce,” he said.

“The community are dying for this place to be good again.”

Regarding the proposed development of units on the club site, Greg promised to be open about what was happening.

“I’m an information sharer,” he said.

“We’ve engaged a contractor to do a feasibility study and it will take a few weeks to get back to the community.”

Greg’s more than ready for the task ahead: “I’ve always operated in small towns. The first job is to re-establish trust in the community.”

He reckons good service and excellent food is the best place to start.

This article appeared in the Richmond River Independent, 2 June 2021.