Former Regal Hotel gets $1m transformation to bar and eatery

A busy downtown corner and one of Hamilton's oldest hotels is getting a Muskoka makeover.

The owners of the Honest Lawyer have taken out a long-term lease on the infamous Regal Hotel at Bay and King streets.

They've gutted the old tavern and emptied the rooming house upstairs as part of a $1 million renovation. Cedar cladding will be installed on the facade in the next week marking the transformation into a restaurant and bar called Cottage Life.

"You're supposed to feel that you're at a really expensive cottage," explains Greg Sandwell, who took on the project with business partner Renee Roth.

The pair, who own numerous restaurants around Ontario, have been chasing the property since they first decided to open a business in Hamilton five years ago.

"It's a pretty phenomenal location," said Sandwell, 46, who lives in Maple.

When he and Roth, 33, who lives in Guelph, couldn't immediately hatch a deal with the tavern's long-time owner Mick Unroth, they opened the Honest Lawyer in Jackson Square nearly three years ago.

Sandwell continued to talk to Unroth, whose family has owned the Regal since the mid-1950s.