Surf’s Up at a New Inner-West Bar

Ignore the name – Redfern Surf Club isn’t a surf club. It’s not a club at all, well not yet. The reason Yannick Maslard and Geoff Spruce (both ex- Cliff Dive) gave their Alexandria bar that name is because they love surf clubs. They grew up in them, admire their diversity and love the cheap drinks. What they want to bring to Alexandria (the bar is just on the border of Redfern and Alexandria) isn’t surfing iconography and $5 VBs, but rather a surf-club vibe.

“Growing up around beaches, surf clubs, RSLs and bowlos brought communities together. It was a melting pot; that’s what we want,” says Maslard.

To capture that atmosphere they’ve kept the interiors unpretentious. The walls are rough bricks, furniture comes from repurposed floorboards. There’s plenty of plants around the space, surf photography and amateur trophies, and in the daytime the large windows fill the space with sunlight. When it’s dark it feels appropriately dingey.

There are no commercial brews on tap; instead there’s Grifter’s pale ale and a rotating mix of other locals. The wine list comprises – as current trends dictate – bottles made with minimal intervention, and there’s a weird contraption behind the bar they use to make the cocktails.

It’s an arbor press, used here to bluntly punch bigger holes in cans of soft drink like Passiona and Sprite so the guys can pour a bit out, add a mini bottle of booze such as rum, tequila and vodka to make an improv canned cocktail, and jam in a straw. A can of Bundaberg ginger beer, for example, gets spruced up with bitters, a mini Bundaberg rum and a slice of lime.

“It’s a tongue-in-cheek reference to classic cocktails,” says Maslard. “That one is a simplistic Dark and Stormy.”

It’s not a new thing – “Cha-chunker”, as the art is called, was invented by a bartender at New York’s Genuine Liquorette – but it sure is fun.

Food at the moment is free bags of spiced popcorn, but on the horizon there might be a menu of tacos. There’s also talk of a beer garden and maybe DJs and live bands. “We want it to be like a house party. It starts off nice and chill and then later in the night who knows, it could be a proper party,” Maslard says.

Redfern Surf Club
60 Botany Road, Alexandria

Hours:
Tue to Sat 4pm–12am

facebook.com/Redfernsurfclub

This article first appeared on Broadsheet on October 4, 2018. Menu items may have changed since publication.