One of Sydney’s Best (and Most Controversial) Burger Groups Launches High N’ Dry, a Pop-Up Bar in Leichhardt

Popular Sydney burger group Hashtag Burgers has opened High N’ Dry, a pop-up bar in Leichhardt. It’s a bit of positive news for the team, which has endured a four-and-a-half year legal battle over its name and branding with American fast-food giant In-N-Out. It was recently forced to change the title of its flagship diner from Down N’ Out to Nameless Bar due to a Federal Court ruling which found they had passed themselves off as the US burger chain.

The pop-up, which is slated to run for six months (but could last longer should it prove popular), has all the burgers fans of Hashtag have come to love, as well as cheeseburger spring rolls, Nashville-style hot chicken burgers and a Portuguese chicken sandwich.

To drink, punters can choose from more than 25 beers – “crafty and otherwise”, co-owner Ben Kagan tells Broadsheet. They include a budget-friendly $6.50 “tightass tinnie”, as well as brews from Hairyman, Yulli’s , Sauce and Sausage Queen. Craft-beer tinnies are sold on a sliding price scale, starting at $10 with the most expensive (Sauce Brewing’s Mango Madness Milkshake IPA) sitting at $16.

The bar has opened in an abandoned Italian trattoria on Renwick Street in Leichhardt – once briefly home to Alfio’s , a 2014 pop-up from the Full Circle team ( Don Peppino’s , Wilmer ). High N’Dry has retained much of the trattoria’s signage, as well as its wooden bar and exposed-brick walls and arches. In typical Hashtag Burgers style, it’s added to the American dive-bar aesthetic with neon signage, dimmed lighting and TV screens.

It’s been a difficult year for Kagan and his Hashtag co-owner Andrew Saliba, who also run popular burger festival Burgapalooza. Not only did the Federal Court rule against them in their battle with In-N-Out (they are currently appealing that decision), but Covid-19 lockdowns saw a 90 per cent reduction in business at their city diner.

High N’ Dry
71 Renwick Street, Leichhardt

Hours
Tues to Sun, 11am–3pm, 5pm–9pm

high-n-dry.com.au/