How Enmore Road dethroned King Street as Sydney’s bar hotspot

It’s a Thursday night on Newtown’s King Street, but Alana Cappetta says the “vibe is Friday”.

“There’s always something on here, always something to eat, always friends to bump into,” she says, sipping a sweaty vodka seltzer can as neon red lighting from the tattoo parlour behind her casts a glow.

Her friend, Gracie Philips-Anderson, agrees. “It’s easy … you can go to a little bar, have a little dance, or there’s a random pop-up like tonight at our friends’ tattoo studio. It’s all connected,” she says.

As the party spills out onto the footpath, inside the parlour people are getting pre-sketched walk-in tattoos or bouncing to techno music blasting from the DJ’s decks, fogging up the windows. “The vibes are also that none of us have work tomorrow,” Cappetta adds.

Graffitied alleys, musky-smelling vintage clothing shops, hatted restaurants and illegal tobacconists lined with empty shelves have come to characterise grungy King Street, Newtown.

The surge of young people who have flocked to the bustling inner-west thoroughfare since lockout laws closed venues across the Sydney CBD has brought an uptick in bars and clubs. But now another corridor has attracted Newtown punters.

Enmore Road has more small bars than the 2.1-kilometre King Street strip, despite being only 800 metres long, data provided to the Herald by NSW Liquor and Gaming shows.

The data reveals King Street now has 104 licensed venues, with 34 openings since 2020. Enmore Road meanwhile has 59 premises, 17 of which were added over the same period.

It follows the introduction of the state’s first special entertainment precinct on Enmore Road last year, which added an extra hour of trading for hospitality venues that host live entertainment and outdoor dining until 11pm. More recently, those hours extended to 2am on Fridays and Saturdays.

The Inner West Council has established six other entertainment precincts, and other councils are looking to Manly, Hornsby and Canley Heights as suburbs to benefit from the nightlife scheme.

Daisy Tulley is the general manager of Mucho Group – which owns Bar Planet on Enmore Road – and said that Newtown’s main arteries have flourished into strips to rival Oxford Street, Paddington because of late-night trading venues.

“King Street’s a lot busier later because you’ve got the Bank Hotel, Newtown Hotel, Marly [Marlborough Hotel] and Pleasure Club – they’re all the historical late-night trading venues,” Tulley said. “Enmore Road, I would say, is busier earlier, but then King Street is busier later.

“It was literally overnight from Newtown being a mix of venues to Newtown being the destination late-night area. It was like it turned into Oxford Street overnight.”

Over on Enmore Road, friends Gemma Kennedy, Adam Jones, Elle Avigano, Ben Campbell and Michael Mai enjoy a pub dinner, accompanied by the range of beers on offer at the Duke of Enmore Hotel.

“Sydney kind of died after lockout laws, but things were still happening around here,” Jones said. His friends agreed, adding that it was no coincidence Newtown was the suburb to sprout the new wave of nightlife.

“It’s got a soul,” Campbell said. “Kings Cross definitely used to have this soul, circa 20 years back, but they gradually lost that over time.”

King Street is split between two councils: the Inner West Council side, which includes Enmore Road. The City of Sydney side boasts a handful of historic, late-trading venues.

The division presents challenges. Under COVID-19 restrictions, one side allowed patrons to enter bars and restaurants, while the other was under a strict lockdown.

For Corridor bar owner Andrew Purcell, who operates on King Street, the entertainment precinct over on Enmore Road is more enticing for business owners looking to open bars like his, especially since King Street is more expensive to lease.

“If you think about people investing and opening businesses, the ability to have longer trading hours is a huge benefit,” Purcell said. “If you’re going out with a group, going somewhere that’s a hub or a hotspot tends to be more of a focus, which can sort of then make other areas less appealing.”

Night Time Industries Association chief executive Mick Gibb said that while King Street has benefited from the nightlife scheme, the state government should match its growth by trialling 24-hour free public transport on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights over summer.

A Sydney nightlife report by the association revealed that transportation is the biggest barrier for people wanting to access nightlife, with nearly six in 10 reporting they had recently decided not to go out due to a lack of transport.

“People need to have the ability to get to and from where they want to go at night, safely and affordably,” Gibb said.

The last train from Newtown station departs at 1.10am on Fridays and Saturdays. Tulley said Newtown appears like a ghost town after midnight.

“Most people are cleared out by 1, and even from personal experience walking up and down Enmore Road, it’s pretty [much a] ghost town from midnight anyway,” she said.

Transport and Night-time Economy Minister John Graham said the government had increased bus services to “key nightlife precincts”, including King Street.

“In the short-term, bus services are the key focus because they’re the most flexible and cost-effective, but over time we’ll investigate boosting other modes,” Graham said.

The Morning Edition newsletter is our guide to the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up here.