Hi there Belgrave,
I spent several years working in pubs, mainy with Matilda Bay Brewing Co when they first started. Like restaurants and cafes, pubs are a huge gamble if you want to start one from scratch. You can do everything right and still fail due to some unforeseen thing, mainly location*.
If you want to avoid the gamble then you have to buy an existing pub with a sound financial history. This means buying a pub with a good steady daily trade, not the ones that just have a big Friday or Saturday night. This in turn means you'll be buying a pub with pokies that serves crap beer to, let's just say, non-premium clientelle! There are exceptions to this but then you'll be paying huge money.
I'm sure the above does not appeal to you
You want to start your own pub. In addition to the suggestions above, you will need, in that area to do something different such as a micro-brewery or just getting the ambience spot on. Doing either of these will repel bread and butter clients and leave you reliant on tourist word of mouth. Once again - big risk.
While the capital cost of a micro-brewery is not relatively high at the volumes I'm guessing you'd need in that area, time and labour are. You'd be working all hours to make the show work. You'll make more money with less risk out of making coffee. (That's what the founder of Matilda Bay did!)
Sorry to not offer anything positive but I hate seeing people start a restaurant/cafe or pub and having to close the doors 3 or 6 months later after investing all they own and their dreams.
Matilda Bay started with the help of a wealthy investor (subsequently jailed for tax evasion - lol!). As for the dreams bit, I think all of us here on AHB secretly dream of owning a pub brewery so, as they say, "I like the way you're thinking!"
Cheers
PP
* Another example of something unforeseen was in Perth. I know a very successful owner of pubs there who has been in the game for many years now. He started up a cook your own steak thing in one of his pubs - totaly successful. Did the same thing at another similiar sized pub with same turnover - total failure. The difference? The first was in a higher income suburb. The second was in a low income suburb. People in the low income suburb, if going out for a feed, wanted to be waited on.
[Started writing this about 4 hrs ago but have been side-tracked by a neighbour who has a billion funny stories. He's just gone up to his place to bring back a video of when he was on, 'A Current Affair,' for winning the Gold Lotto which he never actually won! I reckon put my neighbour in your pub! This would be a winner for sure and he's originally from down your way.]