The Alligator Club Is a New Orleans-Inspired Live Music Bar 10 Years in the Making

There’s so much to look at as you walk into The Alligator Club – including the giant disco ball above the front door – that you could easily miss the corner display case. It houses a pair of brown alligator-skin boots sitting on top of a turntable. Are they the trusty footwear of a legendary musician, immortalised forever in the bar’s foyer? Not exactly.

“They’re my boots. I’ve had them for, like, 25 years and they finally started to give up the ghost,” says owner Glenn Hosking. “I’m sort of known for always wearing those boots.” Naming the bar after them was a natural move. And making it a freewheeling New Orleans-style cocktail den playing music seven nights a week was always the plan.

The Alligator Club was a long time coming for Hosking, who co-owns the bar with friend Shaman Lee. It took a decade for them to find the perfect spot: a basement at the back of a laneway off Warner Street in the heart of the Valley.

The space, 40 metres long and just five metres wide, is directly below 322 Brunswick Street, home to Blute’s Bar and Black Bear Lodge. But this is no Valley Mall bar. For starters, it’s open until 3am every day.

Green leather banquettes line one of the exposed-brick walls, while a long, narrow wooden bar runs along the other. Hosking, a regular visitor to New Orleans, based the design and atmosphere on his favourite bars there and worked on The Alligator Club’s fit-out himself. “The artwork in there is all original canvases I bought in New Orleans [from artist] Rodney King.” The room’s dimensions forced some compromises: there’s no bottled beer because there’s no space to store the empties behind the bar.

Still, there’s a quartet of beers on tap, alongside an eclectic wine list and – the advantage of a long backbar – an extensive range of gin, whisky and tequila. The cocktail menu is divided into eight lesser-known classics and eight fruity creations, equally suited to the humid climates of New Orleans and Brisbane. For a liquid dessert, try the Pandamn It, one of many cocktails in recent years to resurrect Midori. Here, it’s mixed with gin, green apple juice, pandan and orgeat syrup, and then topped with a vanilla foam.

The tiny kitchen, also leaning into its limitations, serves six Roman-style pinsas and a roster of shoestring fries with different sauces and seasonings.

Something Hosking refused to compromise on is the sound system and acoustics, meaning conversation at the bar doesn’t drown out the music, and vice versa. For musicians there’s a “killer house drum kit” made by British Drum Co, and the stage speakers and amps are set up “so they can just plug in and start playing”.

Since The Alligator Club opened in early August, Hosking reckons it’s hosted about 50 different bands, and there are plenty more knocking on the door. “We probably get an email from a new band every day, looking to play.”

As for what they play, he’s keen to free artists from the expectation that they’ll run through the same old pub band covers. There’s plenty of funk and soul on the line-up, but Hosking’s open to anything as long it passes one simple test. “You’ve got to be able to tap your foot to it and get up and dance if you want to.”

The Alligator Club

Warner Lane, Fortitude Valley (Back left doorway, off Warner Street)No phone

No phone

Hours:

Daily 5pm–3am

thealligatorclub.au

@thealligatorclub.au