DESIGN & BUILD: THE OXFORD TAVERN

Dive on in

Beloved Petersham pub, The Oxford Tavern, has maintained its dive bar vibe while broadening its appeal, as owner James Thorpe tells Seamus May.

IT HAS been nearly a decade since the Oxford Tavern, found on a corner plot in Sydney’s trendy Inner West, last underwent a refurbishment. Since then the venue has changed hands, being picked up by Odd Culture Group.

As such, James Thorpe, CEO of the Odd Culture Group, told Australian Hotelier it was high time for a refresh at the Tav, as it is known to locals.

The dive bar aesthetic has been retained at The Oxford Tavern

“The last sort of major – I want to say major, but it wasn’t really – renovation was undertaken in 2013, so nearly ten years ago,” Thorpe says.

“We’ve always wanted to do it as it is our biggest property in terms of footprint, just over 800 square metres. So we always wanted to maximise the space.”

Smarter spaces

For Odd Culture Group it was clear that a lot of Oxford Tavern’s indoor space was going to waste, and the redevelopment sought to make better use of those spaces.

“Old buildings tend to have lots and lots of back of house spaces,” Thorpe states.

Old signs and lights from when the pub was first opened have been used in the new fit-out

“The Tav, when we bought it, the ground floor alone was nearly 50 per cent back-of-house, just rooms and rooms that weren’t being used for anything, and so in an old pub, they tend to just get filled up with random knick-knacks.”

Opening up that front bar room, the space that visitors first enter, was a priority for Thorpe and the group.

“We were reaching capacity on Fridays and Saturdays, so creating a bit more space for guests was always an outcome, and also creating an area where you could get good lines of sight to a live performer,” Thorpe explains.

Live music and performance is a significant part of the Oxford Tavern’s offering, but the current arrangement meant the space was unsuitable for such attractions.

“We do get the possibility of booking fairly large bands from time to time. When we sat down with the floor plan and worked out where we could put, say, 200 people [who] could see the band, there wasn’t really anywhere in the pub where we could do that,” Thorpe says.

While this played a part in stimulating the refurbishment of the pub, the real driver, Thorpe explains, was simply rejuvenating a space that had lost its lustre.

“The main motivation was really just updating what had become a very, very tired and old fit-out. There were bits and pieces that were really at the end of their life, or perhaps in zombie mode,” Thorpe says.

“Now we wanted to give a breath of fresh air to what is really a beautiful pub, and really ideally situated, and has a really interesting history and character.”

New look, same pub

A crucial consideration during the refurbishment was retaining the identity of the Tav.

“[The refurb] wasn’t done to compete with any new trends. We like each of our spaces to speak for themselves,” Thorpe says.

“Each phase is inspired by a certain concept or mood or aesthetic, and we try to really bring that out of the space, rather than gutting everything back to nothing and painting something on.”

“With the Oxford Tav, it’s been known as a dive pub, one of the last remaining in Sydney – so we just really channelled the dive bar aesthetic.”

As such, many of the original features of the Oxford Tavern were retained, including some that dated back to the venues original function as a strip club.

“All the old classic neon signs and decorations from that era were retained – all the ones that are appropriate,” Thorpe says.

The beer garden

Ordinarily, Thorpe handles much of the design process himself, as he has done most recently with Odd Culture’s self-titled venue on Newtown’s King Street. However, with The Oxford Tavern, he worked closely with his bar team to create a functional, aesthetic bar space that would allow for high quality service.

“We obviously had the concept and I spearheaded the process there, but a lot of individual elements were brought about by the team and by the venue staff, which is actually really cool,” Thorpe explains.

“The stainless-steel bar design would be the best example. Every time you design a cocktail station, you always end up with lived experience of ways that it could be better.

“As a former bartender myself, you walk into most bars and you can immediately see the ways in which it’s a little bit clunky in set up. Our group beverage manager worked really hard in collaboration with the venue staff on creating a bar that was fit for purpose. It’s quite a large pub, so being able to dispense drinks very quickly is important,” Thorpe adds.

Another striking feature of the venue is its wall art, which was created by Bodie Jarman, a sign artist working out of the El Oso Negro studio. Jarman worked with Thorpe and a neon sign artist to remove the existing neon fixtures from their Perspex casing, and mount them in a way so that the wires were hidden, but the art was illuminated.

The Tav is one of the last dive bar pubs in Sydney

“So there’s a really beautiful glow onto the wall, onto the artwork that’s been painted by Bodie – that’s definitely a highlight.”

In all, the refurbishment only took about four weeks, and the venue was able to remain operational during that time.

“We have a really dedicated team of contractors. They turned it around really quickly and we didn’t need to close the pub pretty much at all during the process. We just traded out the back in the beer garden.” Ultimately, the plan is to expand on the beer garden and backroom bar. “The next stage is going to be re-do the flooring in the back, knocking through the windows into the big garden and then install timber bifolds. Then the plan is to go out into the beer garden, so that rear bar will feel like a bright, airy, natural extension of that space.”

CHECK ONE TWO

The Oxford Tavern shares its walls with residential properties, and with live music on the billing and a 3am licence, sound dampening was a high priority.

“We started using this material called sound check, which is like gyprock that has sound attenuation properties. Sound check’s been around a while, but the newer version that we're using is completely incredible,” Thorpe says.

“Without going into the neighbour’s house and measuring the sound, it’s hard to know how effective it is, but we had some very, very loud nights over the weekend and didn’t hear anything [from the neighbours].”