There Will Be Beer :: Off Broadway Hotel

November 26th 2012

FBi Radio

There Will Be Beer: A Guide to Sydney’s Pubs & Bars for Cheapskates and Drunkards

When I was in high school, some of my stoner friends would invite everyone around to their place. Their houses were in no way special or attractive, usually only having an old telly that could pick up the ABC and the cricket. They didn’t own any video games, and their computers were jammed full of porn and death metal.

So why did everyone go over?

Because no one gave a shit what you got up to.

It’s a similar kind of situation at Off Broadway.

Sure, you might not be able to smoke pot out of an apple, but provided you’re not disturbing anyone else or tearing down the walls, you can pretty much go nuts here.

We were all heavily intoxicated. Smashed, hammered, tight, liquored up; all of those things and more. A musician was playing covers near the dodgy couches, so we filled the role of back-up singers, screaming off key notes at the crooked pool cues in-between shots of wildly varying skill.

More and more strangers arrived who all quickly became friends and soon we had everyone joining in a rousing version of ‘Umbrella’ by Rihanna, with the crowd carrying out the “ella-ella” part like an echo in a canyon.

Truth be told, there is nothing nice to say about the actual pub. It contains the two worst things a pub could have: televisions and pokies. Worse still, the tellies are constantly tuned to either MTV or whichever channel is peddling Two and a Half Men and The Big Bang Theory nowadays.

The pub is rather large, but 2/3 of the place is taken up by pokies and a TAB, which leaves room for about a dozen televisions to pollute 1/3 of the pub. And for some reason, no matter where the pool tables are placed, or how often they are levelled, one well-placed shot will send every ball to the back left pocket.

There’s a Big Buck Hunter up the back that won’t let you shoot any of the deer on one half of the screen. They did have an awesome Rolling Stones pinball machine, but have since replaced it with a Tron version.

There’s no smoking area.

The music (save a few live performances) generally rises to the same quality as on 2DayFM.

This pub is in no way special or attractive. But to be honest, that’s not a bad thing.

As everyone knows, the best way to make something good look even better is to compare it to something shitty. Off Broadway is located smack-bang in the middle of the Inner West Pub Crawl Map; Glebe, Newtown and Surry Hills are all within ten minutes stumbling distance.

Another benefit that Off Broadway provides is cheap beer. A schooner of Carlton is a mere $4.00, and a paltry $3.00 during happy hour. I challenge you to find a better price within a hundred metres.

You may not be able to impress people by bringing them here, and people at other pubs may look down their noses at you, but when you’re on a pub crawl, it’ll be you and your group that still have the money to continue onwards to obliteration.