When Beat visits The Workers Club, venue manager Nat Presutto and part-owner and band booker Pat Delves, are discussing dimple glasses (you know those old-fashioned, textured pot glasses with handles?). Hours before their opening time at 4pm, the front bar is a hive of activity. It’s a whole new managerial team, rich in connections to the suburb of Fitzroy and community radio. When Delves and Presutto took over last July, the kitchen played host to American barbecue cuisine, but with the appointment of kitchen owner Stew Farrel, The Workers Club abandoned the barbecue fare and got back to basics, now offering half pub classics and half vegetarian options, and everything is made in-house, which has proven an overwhelming success.
“Since we’ve gone to The Workers Club new kitchen, we’ve tripled in sales,” says Presutto. “We’re surrounded by people who are musicians, and it’s all about that great community vibe.”
As Presutto reals off the list of identities who contribute to that community vibe, the connection to RRR, the independent music scene and Melbourne’s broader cultural landscape is palpable: Peter ‘Dr. Pump’ Lawler hosts the pub quiz on every Tuesday, Delves hosted Off The Record for over a decade, and Farrel, vice-captain of the Megahertz, also used to host the RRR breakfast show. Paul McCarthy – you’d recognise him from Steve Vizard’s legendary ‘90s comedy sketch show Totally Full Frontal – hosts bingo every Thursday.
“It’s a great cross-pollination of different artistic backgrounds all culminating in the middle, i.e. producing a pub that’s multi-dimensional,” says Delves.
Their ethos is simple: food, booze and music.
“We’re everything that Fitzroy loves,” continues Delves. “You can still catch a game of footy, too. We’re very in touch with our roots.”
As part of the Pub League, The Workers Club footy team appear in the traditional Fitzroy Lions colours, which Delves explains is a very important part of the suburb’s history that they don’t want to neglect.
“I am a Fitzroy supporter, so it’s not coming from a false perspective at all,” says Delves. “In fact, my grandfather was Mayor of Fitzroy in 19-something or other. So I’ve got great links [to the suburb], I’m a fifth generation Fitzroy supporter and as Fitzroy as they come.”
They’re hugely dedicated to saying ‘thank you’ to their legions of dedicated and diverse clientele, by launching Nieuw Mondays, primarily catering for the uni crowd and locals, where drinks and meals are absurdly cheap: $2 pots, $4 pints, $6 spirits, $8 jugs and $10 meals.
“With beer prices the way they are, that’s our way of saying thank you to everyone else,” says Presutto. “A lot of musicians have no money; [laughs] so it’s our way of saying, ‘Thanks very much, come and play, and you can come and drink now, too’.”
To also say ‘thank you’ to the many staff from St Vincent’s Hospital who frequent the venue, The Workers Club last week held an evening where hospital staff drank for free.
“For a negligible cost in the absolute long term, it’s a nice gesture to give back to the hospital,” says Delves.
“We’re just trying to do the right thing,” adds Presutto. “We’re not trying to grab every cent out of every person; we’d rather give back to the arts… And help that next wave of musicians who don’t always get looked after the way they should.”
In terms of food, Farrel discusses that simplicity is definitely key here.
“It’s so simple,” he says. “We’re not buying in schnitzels, it’s all free-range, it’s all organic, it’s made here, it’s fresh, there’s no jars of sauce. It takes up a bit of time, we don’t have a lot of storage so everything has to be continually turned over and made in small batches.
“[After leaving radio] I may as well go back to what I know, I’m still creating and working for myself… I’m married to a vegetarian, so I know what it’s like going out and find places. Everything that we’re doing is still a work in progress… You won’t find an old menu with cobwebs on it, if something works, we keep it, [and] it’s constantly evolving.” Evolution in the Melbourne food scene is imperative to keeping the relatively short attention span held by the public, and Farrel agrees.
“Where we are there’s so much competition, so we have to keep evolving, otherwise you become stale… [But] I’ve got the short attention span, don’t worry about the customers,” he chuckles.
BY SOPH GOULOPOULOS
