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If you were the type of old club head to trawl the pubs on Brunswick Street for pints, chats and boogie opportunities, you’ll probably remember the Punters Club of yore.
While it was gone for a while, we can now confirm: yes, it’s back – and better than ever. A beloved live music venue from the time before anyone had a mobile phone, and before it was Bimbo (and then Kewpie), the Punters Club has come back to the future with a fresh lick of paint, stacked live music program and an inspired menu of nostalgia-inducing pub grub.
For the latter, think a salt and vinegar chip packet full of tuna tartare (trust us, it's better than it sounds), South Melbourne Market dim sims with Lao Gan Mai chilli oil and an old-school banana split for dessert. If that all sounds too fancy, you can also order a 'roo schnitty, fried chicken or a damn tasty cheeseburger.
While it might not be exactly the same as the good ol' days (I mean, do we really miss smoking inside?), trust that the new owners are a formidable team. There’s Jason Cameron of Near and Far, Matt Francis from Garage Project and Marquis of Lorne, head chef Dylan Marshall (formerly of the Scenic Hotel in South Australia and Marquis of Lorne), musician Mark Wilson, creative agency specialist Britt King, and Nathan Farrell and Adam ‘Weez’ Booth from music management dynamo CLBR. They've described the renovation as a "labour of love", having meticulously sourced artwork, vintage lighting and memorabilia to craft a space that embodies the essence of Fitzroy.
Here's a place where you can catch a live band or settle in for a long, boozy dinner, but you can also have a game of darts, get a photo opp in front of the old-school jukebox or simply sink a few pints in the Love Shack pool room.
Along with locally driven food, beer and a wine list that includes by-the-glass and half-litre carafe options, the venue is also offering its own Punters Draught alongside a rotating selection of local favorites like Guinness and XXXX Gold.
But if you're a muso, you'll be most excited about the pub's unexpectedly impressive program of free live shows. We're talking acts like Milo Eastwood, Black Jesus Experience and plenty more.
The aforementioned eats had my bright green tick of approval months ago, but on a recent night out, I decided to check out how Punters Club has settled in since its red-hot reopening. Spoiler alert: very, very well.
I order a minute steak with brown sauce, a fried egg and chips – the simplest, unfussiest dish on the menu, and yet, quite easy to mangle if prepared in the wrong hands. Fortunately, the plate is as satisfying as I’d expected from such a crew: the steak is thin, lean and just fatty enough, impossibly delicious with great whorls of jammy egg yolk and date-rich brown sauce as its accoutrements. The chips? Oh man, they’re another story. Crisp on the outside and soft and fluffy on the inside, they’d almost be perfect if it weren’t for the overly liberal salting they’d been subjected to before arriving at my table. Still, in the realm of chippie sorcery, undersalting is a much worse sin than oversalting, don’t you agree?
Sipping on a Tommy’s Marg up on the rooftop, the near-40-degree heat isn’t enough to sour my mood. But at some point, I wander downstairs and I’m delighted to discover a tight-knit jazz band playing the kind of music that’s hard to come by on Brunswick Street. On a previous night, I’d enjoyed an R’n’B performance so vocally impressive and dance-worthy I felt a little guilty it wasn’t a paid concert.
Not all of Melbourne’s pubs and bars feel welcoming when I’m solo and listless, but Punters Club seems to welcome this sense of urban wanderlust. Come in, eat, drink or do nothing at all but people-watch, it seems to say, but you’ll be welcome no matter what.
While I’m actually not a huge fan of the Punters table beer, draught or pale ale at this newly revived icon (I’m spoiled at my favourite beer haven a suburb over, Molly Rose Brewery), it hardly seems to matter.
A fluffy-bearded man paints his spectacular talent across blank canvases, saxophones light up my synapses and good Melbourne juju seems to permeate this multi-level hive of conviviality. There’s a congregation of children, young girls, families and smiling drifters all happy to be here, sharing the same space.
Some comebacks fall flat in this town’s relentless food and drink scene, but Punters Club has got off on the right note: from its enviable foot traffic-heavy slice of real estate to the generous line-up of talent booked out weekend after weekend. Next time, I’m eager to try the Sunday roast – those Yorkie puddings look primo.