FORVIC Hotels last week announced plans to create a posh new bar on the sixth floor of the New Albury Hotel. Anton Trees waits with bated breath.
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WITHOUT naming names - at the behest of my editors, who don't want to be firebombed by furious pub owners - most Border bars just aren't getting it done.
Take Dean St. The main Albury drag boasts bars dedicated largely to: a) getting really drunk and b) dancing. A few establishments seem to exist primarily so the young people of the Border have somewhere to take Facebook photos.
Which is fine. There's a market for that, and the punters seem to enjoy themselves.
It's just not for me - and, I think, a lot of other punters. The Border offers little for people who visit bars to talk, not test the limits of responsible service of alcohol legislation.
There are some exceptions. The Wine Room certainly lends itself to conversation. But hooking into a crème brûlée and a Rutherglen muscat isn't always how you want to blow off steam.
Q Manhattans is pleasant. Zed Bar occasionally feels like a real-life version of a dating website, but it’s nice enough too.
I’m told Soden’s used to function reasonably as a place for young folk who were otherwise uninspired by the Albury nightlife.
It’s fine for me to complain, but how would I make the perfect Border bar?
It shouldn't be too hard to set up: buy some couches and tables from Vinnies. Dim the lights. Ensure the soundtrack is anything but Rihanna remixes and the sound of teenagers vomiting in the toilets. Employ some charismatic, friendly bar folk - perhaps you could poach the bearded fella from upstairs at the Bended Elbow and Sheldon from Electra.
That’s it, really. Just a comfortable, relaxing joint. A bar that won’t attract guys who wear Billabong caps indoors and girls who dedicate 40% of their income to fake tanning fees.
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Am I being too picky? Maybe. Elitist? Probably.
So what? The bourbon and coke crowd are spoiled for choice on the Border. Poker machine addicts can mindlessly drop coins in slots at a number of venues.
But if you just want to sit and relax and unwind? You’re out of luck. Best you can do is to post up at the odd little bar inside Taco Bill’s and pretend it’s a Melbourne-style laneway bar.
Everyone is catered for in Sydney, as you’d expect for a city boasting more than four million people. There must be 10,000 bars there.
9,991 of them are terrible, but a few are just right: dark, relaxed, comfortable, with Bruce Springsteen on the jukebox.
Maybe there just isn't a market on the Border. Maybe I'm in a minority of four: me, my girlfriend, her sister and our housemate. I'll admit our business alone will not sustain an entire bar.
But I suspect there are others out there; people who have dinner parties and drinks on their porch instead of venturing out to one of the many local bars that seem to play
It seems developers have cottoned on to this market, with the owners of Groove Saint looking to put together a potentially brilliant sixth floor bar for ’25-year-olds and over.’
But judging from the comments on that news, Borderites aren’t particularly enamoured of the proposal, with many claiming another venue will just increase the number of drunken louts roaming the streets—one reader even claims the sixth-level bar will simply allow drunks to throw other drunks off a tall building.
These commenters get it wrong. Adding another bar to the Border could be a great thing. It just needs to be the right bar.
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