While Smith Street continues to resist the forces of gentrification that have subsumed neighbouring Brunswick Street, the Grace Darling Hotel has morphed into a haven for hipsters and Melbourne gig pigs. An accommodating upstairs bandroom has hosted bands such as Mother and Son, The Frowning Clouds, My Disco, Teeth and Tongue, Ron Peno and the Superstitions, Mesa Cosa and The Bonniwells, while the impressive downstairs restaurant menu has provided plenty of culinary satisfaction. The genial atmosphere inside the venue contrasts sharply with Smith Street’s seedier elements.
Five years ago Maurice Manno decided that the Grace Darling Hotel looked like a good business proposition for a live music venue. “I’ve been involved in restaurants and bars for a long time,” Manno says. “And when this beautiful old pub that I used to walk past every day and admire came up for sale we thought, ‘Let’s go for it’.”
At the time the upstairs room was used as a function venue; Manno and his fellow co-owners saw the potential for the room to be transformed into a live music space. With adjacent venues such as Exile on Smith Street having been closed down after failing to meet noise insulation requirements, the new owners of the Grace Darling made sure the venue didn’t suffer the same fate.
“We had to soundproof the whole room first, which was a pretty big thing – because once you start getting noise complaints from neighbours it’s pretty well all over,” Manno says. “So we went to great lengths to make sure that didn’t happen – and in five years we’ve never had a complaint. We’re also very conscious of our neighbours’ quiet enjoyment.”
A stage was also added; the original sound system installed in the room was upgraded last year to further improve the acoustic performance of the space. Recently a second (smaller capacity) downstairs bandroom was opened to provide another live music space.
While Manno says the Grace Darling has seen its fair share of memorable live bands, he says there haven’t been any especially decadent rock’n’roll evenings. “No-one’s broken down the door or anything like that,” he laughs. “It’s just been a good, consistent band venue that’s filled a niche in the market – you can get about 150 people in the room, which is good for up-and-coming bands because they can fill the room.”
Perhaps surprisingly given Smith Street’s colourful nocturnal character, the Grace Darling has been largely immune from the dramas so often associated with licensed venues. “We’ve had no incidents with unruly customers at all – it’s just not that sort of venue.”
This week the Grace Darling Hotel will celebrate its fifth birthday with a series of gigs that includes shows from Mesa Cosa, Ausmuteants, The Grand Rapids and Demon Parade.
“The birthday celebrations will go for about four days – all of the shows are free. We’re giving all the bands that are playing their guarantee on the door – we’re paying the whole lot to help our customers celebrate with us,” Manno says. The last day of the birthday celebrations will feature a two-hour happy hour with the very 1989 attraction of dollar pots.
Beyond the upcoming birthday celebrations Manno says the Grace Darling Hotel should be around for at least a few more years. “The restaurant’s doing really well, there’s the bar and the piece that completes the puzzle is the bandroom,” Manno says. And Manno doesn’t see inner-urban gentrification undermining the venue’s commercial prospects just yet.
“Smith Street is definitely starting to gentrify,” he says. “In our strip there’s a quite a few good restaurants and trendy bars, but it’s still retaining a lot of its original character and integrity. I reckon we’ve got about ten good years ahead of us.”
BY PATRICK EMERY
