After three and a half years at its Whitmore Square premises, Sparkke is moving out.
The refurbed brewpub in the south-west corner of the city has been sold to Mighty Craft Limited, the parent company of local brewery Mismatch, which will take over the lease from October 4 (entering into a new lease for seven years, initially).
Mismatch retail operations development manager Leigh Morgan tells Broadsheet the team’s pumped to have an independent home for the brand, which currently shares space with Adelaide Hills Distillery, The Hills Cider Company, Ashton Valley Fresh and Vinteloper up at its 84-hectare property Lot 100 in the Adelaide Hills.
“We’re obviously very fortunate to take over such an amazing space and make it our own and finally bring life to Mismatch in its own singular venue, which is something we've kind of always dreamt of,” says Morgan.
“We’ve been looking for a venue for Mismatch for a while – while Lot 100 is great, we really wanted a space where we can tell the Mismatch story,” adds brand manager Marc Huber. “Not only do you get to sample the quality brews we’ll have there, but also talk about our sustainability message, like our closed water loop system we have up at Lot 100.”
The CBD venue’s 800-litre, two-vessel nano-brewery will now be the place for the Mismatch brewers to trial more experimental and special-edition beers in tandem with the core brews made up the hill.
“We’ll still do all of our large-run beers out of the big brewery up there and this will become more of an experimental kit where we can get creative and do collaboration stuff,” says Morgan. “This will give us the opportunity to punch out, you know, 10 kegs of something really cool and run it through the venue … And give us more scope to really go back to being a small craft brewery again, which is really exciting.”
The team acquires the keys to the Whitmore Square pub on October 4, and will “let the venue breathe” for around a week while they rebrand and give it a new lick of paint. Otherwise, there won’t be too many changes to the space.
“The venue structurally is amazing, so there's not a whole lot of stuff we need to change as in smashing walls down or building anything out,” says Morgan. “I guess it's just more bringing our brand into the venue … making it really clean – Mismatch has never been about being a busy brand, but just a really classically led brand.”
The food menu, which is still in the planning stages, will be designed by Lot 100 executive chef Shannon Fleming. “I’ve never done a full-on pub menu before, I’m looking forward to it,” he says. “It’s not going to be a typical classic pub menu … so it's going to be different, very beer-friendly, obviously, to go hand-in-hand with the new brews the guys will do.” There’ll also be some favourites brought down from the Lot 100 menu.
In a statement issued by Mighty Craft, Sparkke’s director and co-founder Rose Kentish said she and the Sparkke team have “worked well and collaboratively with Mighty Craft and we’re sincerely grateful to them for their contribution to the negotiated outcomes. We warmly welcome our colleagues from Mismatch into their new home and wish them every success. We look forward to focusing all of our energies behind the next phase of our company’s growth.”
Kentish attributes the closure to the pandemic and its related trading restrictions, which had continued to affect the business. “We’re proud that we developed and launched an incredibly successful, award‐winning venue that gained local acclaim and national attention. The harsh impacts of 2020 continue to be felt in Adelaide’s current trading environment. In keeping with our commitment to shareholder value, the community in which we operate, and our pub staff, the decision to put our beautiful venue in to the hands of a significantly better-resourced operator is the right one.”
The pub had been through a few changes in its three years: celebrated chef Emma McCaskill took over the kitchen in April 2019. Then in March 2020 she and Sparkke unveiled its new dining room, Fare, right before Covid unleashed itself on Australia. (McCaskill stepped down a few months later before chef Kane Boase and, later, Kelly Delaney took the reins last year.
Sparkke’s pre-Covid plans also included opening a second brewpub – in Melbourne’s Collingwood.
In a separate media release, Sparkke told patrons, “We’re grateful to have had the opportunity to serve you … While we are devastated to be leaving you, we take great comfort in knowing that Sparkke at the Whitmore is the physical embodiment of our company’s DNA and it will continue to serve you long after we have left the building.
“We thank all of our past and present dedicated, gifted staff and the many creative partners and suppliers who have worked with us over the last three years.”
The move is the latest in a long history for the storied site, which was first licensed in 1838 as the Queens Arms. More recently, it was a TAB, a strip club, and then a live music venue.
Sparkke will throw a “thank you party” this weekend, featuring live music, tattooing, a barber and a vintage clothing pop-up. The brand’s beers and spirits will continue to be available in bars, restaurants and bottle shops around Adelaide.
Sparkke’s last hurrah kicks off at 12pm this Saturday October 1. More information here. Its last day of trading is October 4 before the pub relaunches in mid October.
