This month’s ghoulish Friday Club sinks to new depths to explore a couple of cheeky establishments challenging the notion that all that’s cool in this school lives down a laneway. Enter: the basement… “Sweatshop is the mischievous little brother searching through the undies drawers of its big sister Seamstress. Sweatshop is all about absolute quality delivered with style, a dash of fun and plenty of jest. We hope you’ve got your passport…‘cause you’re going to flavour country!!” Following a couple of PornStar Martinis in the basement, we’ll briefly resurface before diving back down to dine at Izakaya Den – from 8.30pm. “The Age” says the Den is where “art-meets-utility specials lists projected on the wall, to the water glasses bearing the cute-yet-sinister cartoons of Yoshitomo Nara, … all-Japanese staff is dressed in black with red sneakers, like funky ninjas from a Tarantino flick, … [and] on the menu, there’s a lively, stylish mix of Japanese izakaya classics, some reinterpretations thereof and a few blow-ins given the Japanesque treatment … Like Denton and co-owners Takashi Omi (former assistant manager at Verge) and Miyuki Nakahara (former manager at Kenzan) say: no rules.” FC has booked a table for 20 so come along and bring your juke box money – for dancing afterwards if we are feeling frisky!

Friday 13 August 6pm+

Location 1: Sweatshop at Seamstress, Basement, 113 Lonsdale St, between Exhibition and Russell, 9663 6363, Click here for more

Location 2: then at 8.30pm, Izakaya Den, Basement, 114 Russell St (cnr Little Collins St) 9654 2977
Click here for more

What do convicts and tigers have in common? This month’s Friday Club, which takes us to a first-fleet brewer’s pub, followed by Chinatown’s most popular dumpling bar*. With the sudden crash to wintery temperatures calling out the ladles and lap rugs, our hibernation-counter-temptation is ale (the main drink in a medieval village) and copious plates of ‘XLB’ pork n prawn dumplings. Besides, we’d all do well to remind ourselves that in this Year of the Tiger, we should be seizing the day and opportunities to exploit our own talents. Just look at James: He seized 5 hens and 4 cocks and won a cruise to Australia, and when the governor tasted his beer “of the most exquisite flavour”, he was given a cow from the Government herd. If you like a hoppy ending, see you on July 2nd. *Friday Club has booked a table for 12 at HuTong. First in, best dressed!

Friday, 2 July, 2010
Time: 6:00pm – 10:30pm
Location: James Squire Brewhouse
Street: Cnr Russell and Little Collins Streets
City/Town: Melbourne, Australia

Click here to View Map

If you can remember our Friday Club at the Red Hummingbird, you probably weren’t there – to borrow a Woodstockian phrase. Well, this new Melbin bar has fallen from the same nest, so to tweet. And just like the Humm’ was in its time The Place To be for an after-work bevvie, so the Pea’ promises to be a cracker. The nice gal who answered the phone BEGGED Friday Clubbers to get there early and dodge the fun-sapping queue, forming from 6.30pm, she said. That means no booking any hair straightening appts or meetings after 4pm and def no last-minute dashes to the gym. NO. L-E-T I-T G-O. Come as you are and make it EARLY. Friday Club is about work-life balance, keeping tabs on the latest and greatest watering holes this city has to offer, and engaging in a loosely-based six-degrees-of-kevin-bacon type social experiment. Don’t miss the FC at the Emerald Peacock. Join the flock!

The stairs to the left of the 7-11 now lead to, well, the Recorded Music Salon, cafe and bar variety. Opening a few months ago, the Recorded Music Salon is a long and lean room with a gorgeous wide window offering views of the most Paris-ish visage of the Paris end of Collins Street. During the day the skeletal plain trees mope against the vintage architecture, and at night the tram stop and the street lights wash the facades with a warm glow.

Where;

Recorded Music Salon, Level 1, 11, Collins Street, Melbourne
www.recordedmusicsalon.com.au
When;

From 6pm – Friday 20th November

PLEASE NOTE TO REGISTER INTEREST IN FRIDAY CLUB PLEASE USE FACEBOOK – search on ‘Friday Club Australia’ to receive updates

OUR APOLOGIES BUT A LAST MINUTE CHANGE OF VENUE –
When: Friday 9th October from 6pm
Where: Belgian Beer Cafe Eureka?
5 Riverside Quay, Southbank VIC 3006? – (03) 9690 5777?

PLEASE NOTE

STARTING NEXT TIME – We plan to start using Facebook to send out Friday Club event invitations and notices, so if you are already on Facebook simply search for ‘Friday Club Australia’ and join up. This is because Facebook has an RSVP facility and it’s free.

If you are not on Facebook then you can sign up for free and create a very simple profile simply for the receipt of Friday Club emails. You don’t have to use it for anything else and you can make your profile totally private too so no one can find you.

It’s been a while but we are back! We’ll not bore you with why we’ve taken a break but we are back firing on all 4 cylinders. We hope the return of Friday Club on 21 August will be marked with an extra specially big turn out, so please swing by from 6pm if you can.

Where;

Tuscan Bar
L1, 79 Bourke Street
Melbourne

When;

Friday 21 August

www.tuscanbar.com.au

We plan to start using Facebook to send out Friday Club event invitations and notices, so if you are already on Facebook simply search for ‘Friday Club Australia’ and join up. This is because Facebook has an RSVP facility and it’s free.

If you are not on Facebook then you can sign up for free and create a very simple profile simply for the receipt of Friday Club emails. You don’t have to use it for anything else and you can make your profile totally private too so no one can find you.

Friday Club is all about meeting new people and having fun and to be honest we just did not feel right about it all given the tragic events unfolding in our back yard. As a mark of respect we are going to give Friday Club a miss this month and encourage all our ‘friday clubbers’ to consider donating what they might have spent on the night to the Victorian Bush Fire Appeal go to www.redcross.org.au or call the toll free number 1800 811 700.

We’ll be back next month!

You’d have to agree, Friday Club looks after its loyal band of members. Well, it seems our next bar tries to do the same for its locals with its ‘Brass Club’ memberships, which will open up a wonderful world of drinking ($5 drinks from 5-7pm) and eating specials before your tired and thirsty Friday eyes… http://www.bearbrass.com.au/locals.asp Join up on the night, if you like. And if you’re wondering where the cheeky name comes from, it was apparently the name for Melbourne until 1837. A quick Google tells us that in 1836, ‘Bearbrass’ comprised 13 buildings – three weatherboard, two slate and eight turf huts, and the “whole of the European population” consisted of 142 males and 35 females. Join us for a great view of the 2009 city skyline, a far more favourable gender ratio, and not least, a drink to celebrate the end of the week!

Date: Friday 30 January 2009
Time: 5.30pm +
Venue: Bear Brass
Address: Shop 3a, River Level, Southgate Arts & Leisure Precinct, Southgate, Melbourne
Phone: 9682 3799
Web: www.bearbrass.com.au

A tad earlier than usual as it’s always such a social whirl at this time of year so swing by on your way to wherever or stay for a while. It’s our last one for this year and of course we’ll be back in 2009.

Continuing with our ‘out of the CBD’ trend we are off to Southpaw. With a crisp and unpretentious fit out that happily incorporates a previously boarded up hundred-odd-year-old decorative window facing the neighbour’s wall, Southpaw is somewhere that you can sit comfortably and enjoy the past and the present without feeling like a bourgie squatter.

They’ve also got a fine selection of local microbrewery beers, a solid wine list, DJs Friday and Saturday and friendly staff.

Southpaw
189 Gertrude St, Fitzroy
Tel. 9417 7057

This month’s southerly shift of FC – to Albert Park – owes itself to the migration of one of FC’s founders to a green-collar company, also located in this leafy bayside suburb. Fear not about transport connections: The Albert Park Hotel is easily accessible by the No. 1 East Coburg – South Melbourne tram, or the No. 96 East Brunswick – St Kilda Beach light rail. Fear not about getting bounced at the door: There’s outside seating where – weather permitting – we plan to stake our claim. And don’t worry about it being all about ‘savvy-b’: this Art Deco pile puts nine beers on tap with more by the bottle, as well as wines by the glass. And if you like architects Six Degrees’ work (Public House, 3 Below City Square, Wall 280 Cafe, Pelican, Meyers Place Bar…) you’ll be pleased to hear you’re in for some more of their fine lines. Join us for our first foray to postcode 3206, at the Albert Park Hotel.

Friday 14 November
5.30pm+
Albert Park Hotel
Cnr Montague and Dundas Place
Albert Park Vic 3206
www.thealbertpark.com.au