There’s a tiny sliver of Newtown – the block where The Bank and Newtown Station sit – that’s zoned by the City of Sydney as a “Late Night Management” area. It’s the only spot in the suburb where businesses have the opportunity to be granted 24-hour trading licences. And it’s in this little area that the new venue by the Odd Culture Group (Oxford Tavern, Duke of Enmore, Odd Culture Newtown, The Old Fitz) is set to open next year, with a licence to trade until 4am every day. And while details are being kept under wraps, we do know two things.

“It’ll be a fucking bar,” Odd Culture CEO James Thorpe tells Broadsheet. “And it’ll have live music. Those are the two things I can say.”

The site is a gigantic basement beneath King Street, a little further towards the train station than Odd Culture’s Newtown bar and restaurant (which has a 2am licence). Once an adult bookshop, it’s sat dormant for years. And while Thorpe and his team were only searching for a basement in Newtown to put a bar – there aren’t a lot of basements in the suburb, says Thorpe – it just so happens the space they found is in that tiny zone where late-night trading is a go.

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“It’s the first 4am licence [for a Newtown bar] since records began,” says Thorpe. “Obviously the Marly and [other pubs] have had their grand old hotel licences for 200 years, and they trade super late. But in terms of bars … there just aren’t that many.”

The licence also means the bar will be able to trade until 4am, even on Sundays – a rarity when most venues in the area are licensed to close by 10pm.

“The Duke is usually completely full at 10pm when it closes on a Sunday,” says Thorpe. “I do think there’s an appetite for this.”

Odd Culture Group’s new venue is slated to open in early to mid-2023.