Bands, booze and beer garden banter.
Live music: spills out from the barebones bandroom most nights of the week, carrying onto the sticky pub floor. It’s loud, unapologetic and exactly where you want to be if you like your gigs sweaty, rowdy and close enough to the stage to get beer spilled on your shoes.
Famous for: dirt-cheap slushie Happy Hours seven days a week, a no-frills vibe that never tries too hard and that glorious streetside patio where Fitzroy locals go to smoke, banter and stare into the void of a Sunday hangover. Is it the most widely adored pub in Fitzy? Quite possibly.
Infamous for: a smell in the bandroom you will certainly notice (and possibly grow to love?). Take a whiff – that’s history, baby.
The Evelyn is the kind of place that doesn’t care what you’re wearing, what you’re drinking, or whether you know the band. It just wants you to have a good time. Nestled in the heart of Fitzroy, it’s a mainstay of the northside music scene – equal parts charming dive bar, local hang and loud-as-hell gig venue.
In the public bar, the vibe is mish-mash chic. As a classic northside watering hole for more than 50 years, it’s the kind of place where you can feel the history as soon as you walk through the door.
When the music kicks off, the Evelyn transforms. The bandroom is intimate, chaotic, and absolutely the right kind of grimy.
You’ll catch everything from indie bands and punk outfits to experimental noise sets, often with a beer in one hand and a new mate shouting in your ear. That room has seen some of the city’s finest offerings, from Dirty Three to Alex Lahey, so go pay your respects if you haven’t already.
For drinks to go, they’ve also got a bottle shop dishing out a carefully curated selection of some of Australia’s finest beers and wines.
For a night out that doesn’t try to be anything it’s not – just cold drinks, good tunes and that unbeatable pub grit – the Evelyn delivers, every damn time.
WHERE: 351 Brunswick St, Fitzroy
OPEN: MON–SUN 12pm–late
