21/07/2026
Have you ever wondered where the name Willow Hotel comes from?
Thomas Grenier (1808-1877) was born in Brighton, Sussex and became a bit of a world traveler from a very young age. He moved to New Zealand with his young family, but crossed the Tasman for a land auction of the Moreton Bay region, finally settling in Brisbane around 1845.
Thomas first ran a butcher shop on Queen St, on the site where the Hungry Jacks stands today. He then became the third licensee of the Brisbane Hotel, which became locally known as the 'Grenier Inn'. This was one of Brisbane's only hotels on the south side of the river and he used the profits from the hotel to buy a 640 acre farm known as "The Willows" in 1855 - for £3 per acre.
The estate is now mostly the site of the Archerfield Airport and still contains the heritage-listed cemetery of the Grenier Family - God’s Acre Cemetery. The first burial at this site had taken place on 27 October 1859 when Thomas and Mary’s 16-year-old son Volney was laid to rest after falling from a horse.
His youngest son, William Leichhardt Grenier, was born at his father's hotel in 1854 and died in 1930, aged 73 in his residence on Hansen Street Moorooka, very near where the Willow Hotel stands today.
So there you go - The name Willow Hotel is most likely a nod to local history, in particular the Grenier family estate - "The Willows".
