The closure of 20-year-old Rundle Street institution Sugar late last year left an opening for a new late-night dance floor in the east end. Smokelovers has been nicely filling the void with the occasional visiting DJ and local guest selectors, and now Wax Bar is taking up the mantle in the former Two Pot Screamer site, above the newly opened Paper Tiger.
Less rowdy club vibes and more intimate cocktail bar, Wax is partly inspired by Melbourne’s 3000-record hi-fi bar Music Room (inside the five-level mega-venue Her) which is itself modelled after the vinyl-spinning listening bars found throughout Europe and Japan, where patrons come for the records as much as they do the drinks (a growing trend in Australia’s bar scene).
The team behind Wax Bar, Penny Hospitality, isn’t calling it a listening bar – a tag that tends to come with high-end audio equipment, considered acoustics and sound-proofing, and a record collection numbering in the thousands – but they are committed to the music, with around 800 disco, funk, soul and house records sitting in a gorgeous new African mahogany cabinet built by Tiger Build’s Sam Weckert, who also built the new DJ booth, complete with a pink terrazzo counter, and added two curved red partitions with arched cut-outs to create a more intimate dance floor.
“We’ve done a few trips to Melbourne and Sydney and something that’s being done really well over there is very minimal, aesthetic bars … more or less focused around the music and the people playing the music and selecting the tracks,” says operations manager Jared Armour.
The Penny Hospitality crew, who were behind Two Pot Screamer, also run Paper Tiger on the ground floor (once the team downstairs settles in, you'll be able to order snacks off the Paper Tiger menu to enjoy upstairs) as well as the West Oak Hotel, Joe’s Henley Beach, Lion Arts Factory and Hindley Street Music Hall, plus nightclubs Div-de and Super California. At Wax, they want to provide a place for punters who want to boogie into the late (or early) hours without hitting the clubs.
“There’s a big gap in the market in Adelaide for that late-night bar hangout area … where you can go enjoy a drink, but then you can also continue the later parts of your night as well,” says Armour. “You don’t have to go out onto Hindley Street – you can have a dance, enjoy a cocktail, listen to good music, and be exposed to some different music as well that you wouldn’t hear at other nightlife venues.
“We’re going down the line of disco, funk, soul and then later on in the night and on weekends going into more house music, and also minimal house music and a bit of progressive house as well. We’re also looking at bringing over artists … the likes of Dr Packer, Late Nite Tuff Guy, all those kings of disco. And we’re not going to charge tickets. We just want to give people good music and good energy in the bar.”
As for the cocktails, the menu is split into “side one” (the classics) and “side two (bonus tracks)” – the latter inspired by the flavours found downstairs with a selection of tropical drinks including a Lychee Long Island, a Mango Daiquiri, a Watermelon Paloma, and a Tropical Caprioska. Grab one and settle into one of the brown leather booths inside, or head out to the balcony overlooking Rundle Street. There’s also house wine and canned beers, with $5 spirits and $5 cans on Wednesdays.
Wax Bar
285 Rundle Street, Adelaide
Hours
Wed to Sat 4pm–late