Arcadia Liquors Review

Review by Stephanie Liebeck

Redfern, a bustling metropolitan of the small bar district and one of the favourites is Arcadia Liquors. Located at 7 Cope Street, near the corner of Regent and Redfern Streets, this place is always stable and always fun. This little bar offers up a banquet of drinks with a cosy "cellar/your best friend's lounge room" atmosphere and jungle-like courtyard area. Arcadia is one of those places that doesn’t want, or need, to change. Already quite an old bar (for small bar standards), this place offers an abundance of fun in all varieties, from good music, great bar staff and excellent moustaches everywhere.

Arcadia Liquors provides all the usual cocktail recipes (Whiskey sours, Manhattan, Cosmopolitans) as well as the general mixed drinks but what strikes is the unpronounceable beer on tap - The Spaten Beer - which immediately was ordered by my friend, a German-lover of every kind. After ordering our drinks (Spaten Beer, Canadian Club & Dry and an Old Fashioned made by one of the best beards I have ever seen), we sat in the midst of jungle ferns in the smokers area and began our night.

Home to record spinning, tap-dancing and face painting, this is one of the few bars that provides its loved patrons, old and new, with Chinese takeaway from Wah Fung HK BBQ located directly across the road. If that doesn’t make you feel at home, the lovelies behind the bar will give you real plates and cutlery instead of sloppily eating Chow Mein from an oil drenched cardboard box in your lap. If Chinese takeaway doesn’t satisfy your every desire for a drunken food binge, then the staff will happily whip you up a cheese toastie or any other variety of toasted sandwiches from behind the bar and maybe even throw some roasted nuts or popcorn your way, if you’re lucky.

One way to spend your night is to sit in the corner and people watch the crowd - this place has everything from the perfectly waxed moustaches to the prettiest retro dresses and sometimes a celebrity. Another way is to be in the thick of the action that is always pumping, whether it is a hillbilly review with a tap-dancing box or swing dancing on the footpath, everyone is always entertained.

Depending on the night, you will come across a variation in the patrons. A weeknight will always have the bar filled with the Redfern/Surry Hills locals and regulars along with the odd speckling of uni students discussing socio-politics. On weekends there is the regular flow of party people looking for the next great place to bar-hop to. What doesn’t ever change is the staff's need to please and happiness to have a dance with you - whether you asked for it or not.

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