Cairns is about to lose the Cock and Bull. Not the pub, which will be fine, but the version of it that has stood on Grove Street since 1988, in a building nobody could build again on purpose.
The block it sits on is needed for the $1 billion AUD expansion of Cairns Hospital. You cannot really argue with a hospital.
What is actually happening
Queensland Health unveiled a 30 year master plan for the Cairns Hospital campus on 5 February 2026. Health Minister Tim Nicholls announced more than $1 billion for a first stage taking in a Health Innovation and Surgical Centre with at least 40 new beds, a health management hub, a multi-storey staff car park, a cyclone-rated rooftop helipad, and expanded imaging, pathology, pharmacy and kitchen services. Construction is due to start late in 2026, with stage one expected to be finished in 2031.
Building it means acquiring land next to the existing hospital. Cairns Local News reported on 17 February 2026 that the properties in the frame included the CWA, the Red Cross, Bay Village, a number of unit and apartment buildings, and the Cock n Bull, with the possible closure of Lake Street between Gatton and Grove streets also on the table.
On 2 September 2026, PubTIC reported that it is now happening. Graham Johnston has owned the pub since 1988 and, by PubTIC’s account, has seen off previous attempts by the state to acquire the site before accepting that this one was not going away.
Where it is going
JAPT P/L, with Graham, Stephanie and Alexander Johnston as directors, has lodged planning documents with Cairns Regional Council. The company bought the Cairns Civic Shopping Centre at 113 to 117 Sheridan Street in March 2026 for $12 million, a 7,128 square metre site about five blocks south of Grove Street. It currently holds a former Reject Shop and a strip on Florence Street with a Thai restaurant, a Domino’s and a dance store.
The proposal is a pub for up to 400 patrons with a sports bar, a gaming room and dining, described in the application as a family friendly dining environment alongside sports bar and gaming activities. There are 103 car spaces, which the application argues is enough on the basis that trade is heavily dominated by tourists and much of it falls outside normal retail hours. The renderings show a timber entry off McLeod Street, ornate tiling, vertical gardens and large windows onto Florence Street.
What Cairns is actually losing
The new place will probably be better in most measurable ways. Better kitchen, better parking, better everything that shows up on a floor plan. That is not really the point.
The Cock and Bull has spent 38 years being one of the few rooms in Cairns that never tried to be anything except itself. Its own website calls it the charm of an Australian hunting lodge with the energy of a lively pub, which is close, but it undersells the thing. Rustic timber, game trophies, old fishing gear on the walls, the Barra Bar, a steakhouse menu that takes meat seriously. None of it was art directed. It accumulated, one year at a time.
You cannot build that. A new venue opens on day one with bare walls no matter what it cost. So the hope is that everything comes off the walls at Grove Street and goes back up five blocks south: the photographs, the trophies, the fishing rods, all of it. A pub’s DNA does not transfer on its own.
The balcony, and the dogs
One practical note while it is still where it is. The Cock and Bull is one of the genuinely dog-friendly pubs in Cairns, and it is the rare one you cannot confirm from a website, because theirs says nothing about dogs at all. We only know because we have sat upstairs on the balcony with two beagles and nobody so much as raised an eyebrow, which is why it sits on our list of dog-friendly cafes and pubs in Cairns.
While we are being useful: the vegetarian lasagne is enormous, it is very good value, and it is not a dish for anyone who is not hungry.
It is not the only movement in the Cairns drinking scene. We have rounded up the other bars and pubs that have opened or been revived recently, including a cowboy saloon on Abbott Street.
What happens next
Cairns Regional Council will assess the application and decide in coming months. No moving date has been announced, and the Johnstons declined to comment when PubTIC approached them.
In the meantime the pub is trading as normal, daily from 10am, with lunch from 11:30am, a limited menu from 3pm and dinner from 5:30pm to 9pm. So there is time. Not unlimited time, but time. If you have been meaning to have a proper night at the Cock and Bull on Grove Street, this is the year for it.
Sources: Queensland Government, 5 February 2026. Cairns Local News, 17 February 2026. PubTIC, 2 September 2026.
