Odd Culture Group announced Pleasure Club in late 2022, boasting the first 4am licence ever granted to a Newtown bar. Since then, the venue’s concept has evolved – from a late-night spot that mixes the rock’n’roll bars of LA with the soul of New Orleans and Southern hospitality, to a genre-busting fever dream of a performance venue and world-class cocktail bar. Pleasure Club is all about the good stuff, and it’s opening this month.
“We wanted it to be equally as good as a cocktail bar as an entertainment space, which is a relationship that’s really tricky to get right,” Nick Zavadszky, Odd Culture Group’s creative director, tells Broadsheet. “You can always expect good service, good drinks and to be entertained, but the path by which you get there is a bit of a wildcard.”
The 120-seat venue is set to be a rabbit’s warren – with nooks and crannies to hide away in, a pool table and a jukebox, plus a dedicated cocktail lab behind an unassuming door. “It really will be a different beast depending on the day you go,” says Zavadszky.
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SIGN UPHeading up the drinks is the group’s beverage manager Sam Kirk and Re’s Matt Whiley. This pair of world-renowned cocktail experts have devised a seasonally changing cocktail program – coined A Pleasure Club Story – for inside the cocktail lab, which will tie into the wider drinks list. “With the lab equipment we have, we can create anything without any limits,” Whiley said in a statement. “The team is letting their imaginations run wild.”
While the entertainment program is yet to be finalised, Broadsheet confirmed that we’ll be seeing the likes of Frank Sultana, the Kiama local who won gold at the International Blues Challenge 2023; the 12-piece cabaret-meets-blues band Dane Blacklock & the Preacher's Daughter; and the psychedelic outfit Neptune Power Federation.
When curating the line-up, the group’s entertainment manager Sabrina Medcalf was driven by questions. “What are people not seeing? What can we bring to Sydney that’s new and fresh that no one has explored yet? We play with the concept of a fever dream at Pleasure Club,” she says.
The entire club is the stage, where burlesque performers and roving puppets will join “visual surprises and fantasy”.
“I think people have an idea of what a 4am-licensed venue looks like, and we’re gonna change that,” Medcalf says. “It’s forever being entertained – it’s just one night, but it’s going to be the best night that you’ve ever had.”
The first performance announcement is expected next week, which will include Medcalf’s “favourite band on planet Earth”.
Pleasure Club will open at 6 Wilson Street, Newtown, on Friday February 23, 2024.