Courthouse Hotel

I can’t tell a lie, I luuuurves me an old man pub and Courthouse is one of the best. The beers are relatively cheap (for the area), the bar snacks are limited, the décor is tired, the pokies are plentiful and the atmosphere is pure, concentrated, stale booze soaked carpet.
What makes this place is the regulars. Like crazy moths to an insane flame they come from all over Sydney to regale you with tales of their upcoming brain surgery, a result of them falling off the balcony of the Midnight Shift. But then you find out they have also had cancer and every other ailment imaginable and the Midnight Shift doesn’t even have a balcony. Hey…
Others will just ramble at you in a thick Croatian accent. Im looking at you, Jumbo.
Upstairs is the Bistro with some of the best, reasonably priced pub grub around. $ 25 for a 1 kilo steak. Wow.
You can also rent a room for $ 50 per night. You have to share facilities with a collection of randoms and old people who are down from the country visiting a relative in St Vincent’s but an overnight stay in Sydney for only a Pineapple? Come on…
This place also has the best view of the numerous equal marriage and climate protests that happen on a regular basis up and down Oxford St. Greeeeeat people watching.

The Courthouse Hotel is where all decent nights go to die. I stumbled in there during my kick of having solo beers. I had just moved to Australia and was looking to make friends. Why I chose this unabashedly classless establishment, I am not too sure.
I walked in, got a beer and started talking to the most normal seeming group of guys I could find. The bar seemed to house a pretty solid collection of weirdos. Maybe it was the location, or the cheep beers, or the reputation, but the Courthouse as I now know it, is an oddball haven.
The group I started chatting to was a group of Irishmen. This in itself was entertainment enough, despite the strange behaviour from the patrons around me. At one point, a verbal fight broke out in indistinguishable English. Shortly after, said fighters were dragged out by their t-​shirts and thrown onto the Taylor Square pavement.
In total, it don’t entirely regret my decision to walk through the Courthouse doors, but under no circumstance or level of consciousness would I ever do it again. It’s funny that they named the bar after a place where no one really wants to be, but a certain type always seems to end up. Well done, Courthouse.

A Sydney institution. The Courthouse has been around for years, situated half way up Oxford Street, right on Taylor Square, and always seems to be ‘on the way home’. Unfortunately for the next days hangover.
Open 24 hours, this place attracts all sorts, at various stages of the night, or morning out. Always seedy, always a blur. I don’t seem to have any solid memories of nights out at the Courthouse, perhaps I was glamoured by a friendly bouncer.
Judging by photos that always seem to surface the day after a night at The Courthouse, I know I’ve been there, and I certainly seemed to enjoy the drinks.

It’s 3am, you’ve just been «asked to leave» the bar around the corner but your beer soaked brain says that you still need another drink. That’s when the Courthouse is an acceptable choice. Before that point, it most certainly isn’t. Walking out into broad daylight is not an unusual occurrence, but that’s the joy of a 24 hour bar for you! By day, it houses some, erm, overly hydrated locals and by night, it’s probably the same, but I’m usually just as well oiled as them by the time I make it in there!
It’s not one of those places you ever plan to go to, but it’s certainly somewhere where you’re likely to end up! And to give it credit, it does have a not-​too-​shabby upstairs area, which could be considered slightly earlier in the evening. But only slightly earlier.