We've collected the best ways for you to experience Melbourne while staying at home here into this hub, so you can stay sane, comfortable, fed, watered and entertained at home – while helping small business owners, hospitality workers and creative people who desperately need your business.
You've heard of drive through... now meet drag through. Pride of our Footscray has opened what might just be Melbourne's first "drag thru" cocktail bar, keeping spirits high (and in your glass) during lockdown by serving drinks from a drag queen-staffed outdoor bar.
Every Friday and Saturday evening during lockdown, queen Aurora Arsenic will be staffing the Pride Outside Cocktail Bar at the entrance of Pride of our Footscray. The seven-foot-tall glamazon will be slinging classic takeaway cocktails such as Espresso Martinis and Margaritas, plus the venue's fave drinks like the Hans Solo and Sea Breezy. You can get all four for $50, with beer and wine available as well.
Merch can be bought while you're waiting for your drink (if you buy a hoodie, you'll get a free cocktail), or you can simply bop along to the Pride Club hits that'll be playing.
As a nightlife and entertainment venue, Pride of our Footscray has been adapting to lockdowns and restrictions since March 2020 (you might remember, or even taken part in, the online drag bingo sessions the team ran last year). The team established the outside, lockdown-safe takeaway bar as another way to connect to their community during tough times, saying: "now is the time for lockdown realness, making and serving fabulous cocktails, and always with a drag queen in sight!"
The bar is open Fridays and Saturdays during Melbourne's sixth lockdown. Head to Pride of our Footscray (1/86-88 Hopkins St, Footscray) between 4pm and 7pm to say hi and grab a drink.