In a tiny, 50-square-metre room on the first floor of a nondescript sandstone building with no signage and a burly doorman leading punters upstairs was Bulletin Place: an intimate, spartan cocktail lounge that rode the wave of Sydney's small bar revolution. Home to some of the city's best bartenders and an all-around charming late-night hangout for a chat, a laugh and a killer cocktail from a constantly rotating menu, it served its last drinks on Friday, May 28.
Co-owner Tim Philips-Johansson wrote a mini-elegy for the much-lauded bar – it was named Time Out's Bar of the Year, took out the Cocktail Bar of the Year three times at the Time Out Bar Awards, and regularly secured a place on the prestigious World's 50 Best Bars list – calling its closure a "death of a thousand cuts". Bulletin Place found its feet following the significant drop-off in foot traffic caused by the CBD's lockout laws in 2014; persevered in the long-standing light rail construction works of 2018; and continued to open its doors even after the biggest blow of them all, the pandemic. However, the business ultimately succumbed to the lingering financial impacts of this string of major challenges.
"Unavoidable hurdles thrown our way leading up to, during, and after Covid hit, coupled with an ambivalent landlord, gave us no option but to concede and to raise one last glass to our precious bar," wrote Phillips-Johansson.
"I’m so proud that we closed the doors with the team we had, still producing the quality of drinks we always had preceding that... We had no idea what we were doing when we opened Bulletin Place and put simply, we were led by our hearts and heads. We looked after each other and welcomed dozens of new members to our bar family. Everyone that has worked at Bulletin Place truly means so much to me, and I hope they always hold their time at Bulletin Place special in their hearts."
Philips-Johansson and his team are still operating all-day restaurant and bar Dead Ringer in Surry Hills.
The closure of Bulletin Place is a definite blow to Sydney's small bar scene and reflects on the precariousness of the industry, especially within the current narrative which states that, at least in Australia, hospitality venues and staff are out of the woods. But after years of restrictions, capacity limits, mandated closures and regulations – and a confluence of factors that began well before the pandemic – it's proven to be not quite that simple. Vale Bulletin Place, you shall be missed.