Enmore Road’s concrete cowboys will soon be without their Cherry Colas and ’70s-Australiana-meets-disco fit-out. The Enmore Country Club team’s packing up – and final service is soon.
“I’m weirdly not that bummed about it, it seems like the right thing to do,” co-owner Dan McBride tells Broadsheet. “The guys that are buying it are good people, so it’ll be cool to see something else happen on that strip.”
McBride and Dynn Szmulewicz (of the now-closed Sunshine Inn, The Little Guy, ex-Golden Gully) opened the Club with Zac Godbolt (Doom Juice) at the start of 2023. The trio is also part of the five-strong team of publicans that’s just revamped Redfern favourite The Bat & Ball. The incoming Enmore owners are still under wraps – we hear they’re known from another inner-west small bar; when they get the keys, they’ll start a reno.
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SIGN UP“They were looking for something for ages along that strip, and because The Bat & Ball has been a big beast, we just found ourselves pretty time-poor. We were swamped and we couldn’t give [the Club] the time it needed. The offer came in at a good time.”
“Owner-operated small bars are always my favourite, put it that way. But they need a lot of attention,” says McBride. That attention can mean house-made cherry-cola syrup, ready to be fizzed up then joined by your booze of choice; tight food menus and sharp wine lists; retro wooden cladding and spinning disco balls.
We’re looking forward to seeing the new team give the small space their own touch.
“We didn’t want to just put it up on the market,” McBride says. “We wanted to be quite calculated in the next step of it. And even though it’s not going to be like Enmore Country Club, the three of us really love that area, so we wanted to make sure something would happen there that would be within the fabric of the neighbourhood.”
McBride hints at future projects, and we’re expecting a Doom Juice Cellar Door by the end of 2025.
Last drinks at Enmore Country Club will be called on Sunday March 16. There’ll be $7 Cherry Colas to celebrate until then, and then the locally loved drink will be hitting The Bat & Ball’s drinks list. Yeehaw.
Enmore Country Club’s final service will be Sunday March 16, 2025.