They’re the bars that stand back while you violently hurl your guts all over the bar, wipe it down, then gladly serve you another jug of New.
The pubs with dodgy sofas so crusty, you’re pretty certain you’ve caught genital lice by walking past them.
The hotels that inexplicably remain open in the face of Department of Health inspections.
You wouldn’t dare bring a first date to any of them – but somehow, they’re all brilliant. What is Sydney’s “best worst” bar, what antics have you seen at them, and what makes them so good?
{ 22 comments… read them below or add one }
For me, you can’t go past the East Sydney Hotel in Woolloomooloo. Feeling somewhat like a country pub transported through time and seriously misplaced into inner Sydney, you’re guaranteed to meet a local character or two, and the drinking gets pretty crazy late into the night. You’ll probably see everything from Russell Crowe hurling a bar stool through a window to a strangely liberal interpretation of “responsible service of alcohol” when you pay a visit most weekends.
The Courthouse Hotel in Newtown.
I think I love it for the glass guy…he is always in levels of coming down from a big night. I guy with tremors delicately stacking schooner glasses is a beautiful thing to watch.
A vote for a FORMER ‘best-worst’ pub in Sydney is Judgement Bar, upstairs after a gig, when you could still smoke inside. The highlight there was watching prozzies run up to the ‘classy accomodation’ wearing nothing but a gold g-string and heels from Big W. Those were the days.
The Courthouse is definitely an honourable mention.
I nominate the County Clare in Ultimo. The inside looks like a cross between an abandoned Vinnies store and a brothel, and the ‘beer garden’ is a graffitoed alley with a dumpster in it.
The womens ‘toilet’ is an experience unto itself as well.
I’ll give an honourable mention to the claire on broadway, mainly because of their toilets. What a beautiful sight.
I agree with the Clare – definitely best “worst pub” in Sydney :) The East Sydney Hotel is close, but the lack of pokies is a desirable quality.
I recommend Pontoon in Darling Harbor as one of the worst. I went there twice, and saw a fight eachtime. Just spoils the night :/
I nominate the Abercrombie, also on Broadway. It trumps the usual wet dirty dog smell you often get in old pubs with an undertone of both fresh and vintage vomit. I’ve also actually fallen over there once because the floor has been so sticky and the effort to remove my feet from the ground has sent me toppling.
I’m going to have to go with the Annandale. All the furnishings needed replacing about 20 years ago, the floor’s so sticky that I’ve stopped wearing thongs when I might even end up there. If it wasn’t for the awesome live music they continue to serve up, I would never have been there, and that’s pretty much why it is brilliant. Oh and it’s proximity to Stanmore Maccas for an after gig/ drunken feed always comes in handy.
I vote 1 The Gaslight. the downstairs part. it smells like fermenting beer + vomit, there are so many crazy characters there it isn’t funny, and somehow the soft furnishings seem alive… but for some reason you are inexplicibly likely to end up there if you’re out and about in the area.
The east sydney is a good pub! It’s definately not the “best worst”.
Honourable mentions to the Clare and the Courthouse, but I’ve gotta go with the Annandale as well. As a previous commenter said, their incredible ongoing dedication to live music and the great acts they keep putting on makes them a a top pub despite the sticky floors and the general feeling of being dirty just from going inside (though the beer gardeny bit isn’t so bad).
Sorry, the Clare and the Annandale are ‘bad’ pubs?!(and who wears thongs to a gig? shame!)The Clare caters to a specific audience – people who like comfy couches and cheap beer – and while it might ‘look like a vinnes’ (a plus, in my eyes!) is clean and doesn’t smell like vomit…
The Lord Wolseley in Pyrmont used to be a contender (pre reno) with it’s dodgy locals and use of the park next door as a beer garden (not totally legal, i suspect). But a special place remains in my heart for the collection of horrible bars near the Metro… A brawl always seems likely to break out, they run a metal detector over you on the way in, but the drinks are very cheap and cold (and they’ll keep them coming beyond the point of sense)
scruffy murphys. go here on a tuesday night for cheap rinks, easy foreigners and a (sometimes) kick ass band. downstairs reeks of stale sweat and vomit and the irish bartenders are near impossible to understand, so don’t expect to recieve the drunks you asked for.
I miss that little pub! Though I have discovered another that is also in Woolloomooloo – the Old Fitzroy. A great pub! And again is the dodgy but good pub, with the el cheapo Asian food on the menu.
However, my fave good bad pub is the Lord Nelson in Ultimo. I lived literally two doors down. It fronts onto a park and has locals that are there EVERY morning at 10am. Some sit on the park bench outside waiting for it to open!
Are any of you signed up for the Annandale’s what’s on email? This week the subject was “BIG SHOWS, sticky floors & warm pub cha!” I think they’re on to us.
Lansdowne Hotel on Broadway and City Road. Free live music, cheap jugs and food is good. A close second is the Townie. Rock on bitchez.
THe best worst pub has to be Newtown Hotel! it isn’t even open any more?
The most unfriendly and rude pub by far is The White Cockatoo Petersham (next to the northern side of Petersham Station). There is a blondish and pinkish dyed hair girl that is the worst of the worst. Literally told my wife and I (with our child present) to F off after we queried the price of a bottle of white wine in their so called bottle shop. This young girl is definitely one of those servants that clearly hasn’t heard the saying “The Customer is always right”. The Manager is an arrogant individual as well. My wife and I own 4 properties very close to this establishment (residing in one of them) and despite The White Cockatoo being in a convenient location, we (now along with a growing number of our neighborhood friends, will never set foot in premises ever again. To add to this, someone was knifed outside The White Cockatoo the other night. < 0/10 – You just can’t get any worse.
I have been to 90% of the above pubs mentioned; yes I know.. tragic.
By far the bestworst pub in Sydney is the Bridge Hotel in Rozelle after 2am. Saw 3 fights, 2 girls vomiting, toilets blocked and not been cleaned forever… basically its two halls with bars in them..
Terrible but somehow a refuge at the late hours of the night.
Just want to defend ‘The White Cockatoo’ – I’ve never had any issues there with the staff, and the food *wow* is among the best value in all of Sydney.
I recently moved away from the inner west but come back regularly just for the White Cockatoo.
“By far the bestworst pub in Sydney is the Bridge Hotel in Rozelle after 2am. Saw 3 fights, 2 girls vomiting, toilets blocked and not been cleaned forever… basically its two halls with bars in them.. ”
This much is true. Post 2am is like the bar scene from Star Wars on very bad acid. A great rule for life is “If you have ended up at the Bridge you have had too much.”
But for the true hardcore drinker nothing can touch the brutality of the Duke of Wellington in Waterloo circa 830am. True courage is required to drink here. Take your chances and you may escape unscathed, but this establishment can leave the most rugged of men feeling as soft as last weeks bannanas.
Worst feature about this place is one cannot feel safe staying there, born out by theft from within a (my) locked room. I detest this place and those who own/run it. A crap hotel and a blight on Sydney.
I refer to Courthouse Hotel, Darlinghurst – Taylor Square