Green Park Hotel (CLOSED)

The Green Park Hotel is doing it right. It may be only a stone’s throw from the heart of Kings Cross but there’s a very different kind of party going on in this prettied up pub. It’s not a gay bar but even early on a Saturday evening you’ll find the place heaving with the handsome boys of Darlinghurst sporting expensive shoes and imported denim. Everyone else is here too – it’s the sort of place people gravitate to. Even if the sun is still shining, inside it’s always beer o’clock thanks to a green-so-dark-it’s-almost-black paint job, deep blue tiles and a black top bar. Lighting the way is a collection of vintage lamps and a whole lot of candlelight in amongst the liquor bottles and on tables – romantic and hangover-friendly. They’ve divvied up the tap space so that there’s a nice balance of familiar faces like James Squire One Fifty Lashes, and strangers you’d like to know better like Young Henrys, Murrays, Matilda Bay and White Rabbit. They also do a beer of the month, which means $5.50 schooners of the Ruby Tuesday amber ale. In fact there’s enough on tap that you don’t even need to know what lies beyond the vintage wood-panelled fridge doors behind the bar. The tunes here are grade A, prime quality rock. Gary Numan’s ‘Cars’ comes hot on the heels of Suzi Quatro’s ‘Devil Gate Drive’, Icehouse’s ‘Electric Blue’ and a little ‘Rebel, Rebel’ from Bowie. Give it a few more hours and there will be dancing. On Sundays there are $5 drinks to be drunk, live music on Thursdays to give you a run-up to the weekend and old black-and-white mug shots to remind you where a big run-up can lead. The Green Park is a good times pub for when you want to be in the thick of things.