The hotel was originally built as a
coffee palace by local members of the
temperance movement, as the Broken Hill Coffee Palace. It was designed by
Melbourne architect Alfred Dunn and built in 1889 at a cost of £12,190, opening on 18 December that year. The coffee palace was not a financial success, running at a loss for its first three years. In July 1892, media reports indicated the company and lessees were "stone broke". In that month, the lessee applied for and was granted a liquor license, at which time it was renamed the Palace Hotel. Around 1980, the owner at the time, Mario Celotto, painted a mural of
Botticelli's Venus on a ceiling. He later paid Gordon Waye, an
Indigenous artist from
Port Augusta, to paint all the other mostly landscape themed murals in the hotel, making the hotel a tourist attraction. The 1994 Australian
comedy-drama film,
The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, filmed many of its Broken Hill scenes in the Palace Hotel, which producer
Al Clark described as "drag queen heaven". The movie describes the hotel's murals as "tack-o-rama". In 2009, Esther La Rovere bought the hotel. By this time, there were many international tourists visiting the pub because of the film. == Heritage listing ==