We hope you got your Rooftop Bar fix this summer, because following the recent end of the annual Rooftop Cinema season run, the entire Rooftop Bar space will be shutting up shop this month until next spring. The crowning glory of Curtin House will undergo a long-planned total renovation – the bar will be open from noon every day until April 24, before it closes for demolition and construction works on April 26.
Rooftop Cinema and Bar managing director Frunch Nazzari said the renovations were a long time coming for the 12-year-old bar. "For over ten years I've thought, if I had my chance again, I'd do it like this. We've learned what Rooftop is and we're going to evolve it to be something perfect."
When the bar opened in the summer of 2005, there was no other rooftop bar of its kind and the bar's 360-degree view of the Melbourne skyline was unparalleled. The changes to the rooftop bar will be designed by Techne Architecture, whose past projects include Garden State Hotel and Fonda Windsor's rooftop. Rooftop Bar 2.0 will feature an all-weather awning that will block the sun in the peak of summer and keep punters dry when Melbourne's weather isn't cooperating. The bar and burger shack will be made bigger without compromising the rooftop views, and they're planning to make finding a seat easier by adding timber bleachers on the AstroTurf.
All other businesses in Curtin House, including Cookie, The Toff in Town and Mesa Verde will not be affected by the construction work. Rooftop bar will reopen later this year in spring, and the summer 2017/2018 Rooftop Cinema program will start from December 2.