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Exchange Hotel

Containing Melbourne's first hotel 'bottle shop', or in-house wine and spirit store, the popular Exchange Hotel stood on the south-west corner of Swanston and Little Collins streets. The 'bottle shop' was the creation of Jimmy Richardson, who owned the hotel from 1911 until 1939 as one of his chain of city hotels. For many years the hotel's Café Français had a reputation for important political and social patrons such as Edmund Barton, Alfred Deakin, John Monash and Ernest Shackleton. First built in 1854 for John Butterworth and later rebuilt by Richardson, the Exchange was demolished in 1939 to make way for the Century Building.

Chrystopher J. Spicer