Brunswick East’s Tiny Bar To Close Next Month

Melbourne’s favourite five-square-metre bar has called last drinks. Couple Jamila Fontana and Zac Shearer (formerly a chef at The Lincoln and French Saloon) took over a Brunswick East bagel shop in early 2025 and reopened it as Tiny Bar, a space where the delineation between kitchen and dining room is basically non-existent.

At the end of the year we named it one of 2025’s 11 best new bars, owing partly to the sheer range of snacks and larger plates Shearer manages in the cramped galley kitchen, and partly to that rare sense of intimacy with customers.

In a recent edition of Where Chefs Eat, Zareh’s Josh Fry told us he’d visited Tiny Bar more than anywhere else in Melbourne and summed up the appeal: “Zac is cooking some great dishes out of a truly tiny kitchen. It’s like you’re in his living room – good chats and great hospitality.”

Shearer announced the bar’s impending closure this morning, stating: “Tiny was never meant to become an empire. It was about proving that a small, independent restaurant could be ambitious without being big.

“With our lease coming to an end, we had to decide if it kept striking the balance we originally intended and as many of you know, there’s no easy way to run a small business. 

“Right now feels like the right moment to finish the story rather than sign up for another chapter. 

“So that’s what we’re doing.”

Tiny Bar will close on October 9.

Zac Shearer was contacted for comment.

Tiny Bar
221D Blyth Street, Brunswick East
No phone

Hours:
Thu to Sat 5pm–11pm

@tinybar_melbourne