Country pub owner proud to keep 'heartbeat' of town going at 86

Jim Pohl has lost count of how many pubs he has owned, although the 86-year-old publican's memory is sharp as a tack.

"I got the feeling it might have been 15 or 16, maybe 17," he said.

Jim was 26 when he immigrated from Malaysia. He joined the air force and even worked in abattoirs before venturing into the publican scene.

He was working at a Katherine pub in the Northern Territory when a chance comment from his boss sparked the change.

"An old lady says to me, 'You're wasting your time working for me, you should go and get your own pub,'"Jim said.

Country 'heartbeat'

He soon bought a pub south of Perth in North Dandalup.

"From there, one thing led to another," Jim said.

He has since owned 16 pubs, mostly in regional WA, spanning from Northampton in the Midwest to Mount Barker in the Great Southern.

Jim ran two pubs in Perth, but "didn't cotton on to the city life".

"I just kept going to the bush. Better people, greater atmosphere and people are real in the bush," he said.

"You're dealing with real people, real everyday people, people who get their hands dirty and know what it's all about, you know, what work is.

"The pub is the heartbeat of a country town."

A family affair

Now, Jim has settled in Perenjori, 350 kilometres north-east of Perth, working at the hotel with his son, Kirk.

The kitchen can churn out up to 100 meals a night, drawing in a bumper crowd every "T-bone Tuesday".

Each day, Jim is up before the sun to prepare the evening special.

"I do it all in the morning, prepare it for [Kirk], it's ready for him at four o'clock, and I go and give him a hand if he needs it," Jim said.

"Then I sit at the end of the bar and just make sure that the barmaids are working."

Mr Matchmaker

Kirk has followed in his father's footsteps, owning and managing the Perenjori Hotel since 2005.

"I grew up in pubs," Kirk said,

With that kind of upbringing, Kirk learnt the keys to success.

"Just the basic things like cold beer and a warm shower and a good bed,"he said.

"Staff make a big difference … they can really make or break."

The pub hosts a cycle of international backpackers working behind the bar — but some never leave.

Over the years, 13 women have fallen in love with Perenjori locals and put roots down in Australia, including Kirk's wife, Silvia.

"She actually got off the bus here as a backpacker on her 27th birthday," he said.

"She was travelling from Italy and she just wound up getting a job with us here and the rest is history I suppose."

Kirk and Silvia now have two children, but Jim also claims the other 21 children born to couples who met at the pub as his grandchildren.

"I won a medal from the immigration department," he jokes.

Loading...In path of destruction

Jim was sleeping on the second floor of the hotel when Cyclone Seroja struck in 2021.

The category 3 storm damaged more than 2,270 properties across the Midwest and Wheatbelt, including the Perenjori Hotel.

"I heard a crack and I though, 'Oh bloody God'," Jim says.

"A whole chimney … flew past me.

"[It] hit the power pole in the corner there, snapped it in half and sent the whole town black."

Once dawn broke, Jim assessed the damage.

"The whole roof got blown across the road,"he said.

Insurance offered to pay out the damage but the Pohls chose to stay and rebuild, and the hotel re-opened in 2023.

"I'd just been selling all my pubs and this was the only one that I kept for him [Kirk]," Jim says.

"So they fixed it up for us, and there you go, we're trading again.

"And [it's] probably one of the better pubs in the Midwest, here, even if I say so."

No retirement plans

Jim says he has no plans to retire.

"I need something to worry about tomorrow, I have to have a reason to get up in the morning — and smelling the roses, I'm not ready for that," he says.

"That's what it is, a reason for living."

With a few minutes until the pub opens, a handful of regular customers are waiting at the door.

Even the rusted-on clientele concede that Jim is doing something right.

"He makes everybody welcome," Tom Downer says.

"I can't believe I'm actually saying that about Jim, but he does."

Steve King added: "He pretends he's tough, but with the staff he's like butter."

Jim attributes his success to those larrikins — his customers.

"The reason why this place trades well, it's because of the people," he says.

"You sit here, just pretend to be nobody, and I guarantee within five minutes, somebody will be talking to you."