Joint Bar

I suspect that this bar changes character after about 7:00 pm on a Friday and Saturday night because that is when the bouncers come out and rope off the entrance. I generally don’t like running the gauntlet so I arrive earlier because I must say I really like this bar. The reason, to put it simply, is the balcony. Here you can sit outside and watch the trams and the people go about their business on Elizabeth Street. I remember a friend of mine recommending this bar to me, though when we were in Melbourne together we never had to chance of coming here. I have done so since, and it is one of my regular haunts, though not so much these days because there are plenty of other places to go to as well. Still, if only for the balcony, I give this place the thumbs up.

I don’t even know what kinds of people come to this place. The music is just… terrible. I found myself cringing with every new song that came on. I was sitting there waiting, counting the minutes, until my friend finished their drinks so that I could get out of the place.
Maybe it’s got a little bit of character I don’t know about. All I know is that there were drunk people stumbling around falling over trying to take selfies. People were on the «dance floor» trying to show as much skin as possible while still wearing clothing.
Not my kind of place.

This is an upstairs bar where the «salt of the earth» backpackers and kinda rough alternative crowd come for knock off drinks or get drunk in an unpretentious setting.
The bar is dark and relatively large which is good if theres a group of you and you aren’t particularly fussy where you buy jugs of beer. There is a few things going for this place; the large outdoor balcony which by about 7pm is crammed with smokers, the ‘Who wants to be a millionaire?’ arcade game, video jukebox, pool tables and ok priced drinks.
Its not fancy and is centrally located, good for lazy afternoon beer without bollocks.

Ok this is a backpacker bar. So obviously it is crap and reasonably cheap. It is also meant to be a great place to go if you want a no fuss good time, to drink yourself into oblivion, wear your sneakers out in town and quite possibly meet some interesting travelers. Which really does beg the question as to why they have a ‘red carpet’ outside and bouncers who try and make out you are entering one of New York’s high end clubs?
The one time I went to this dive bar I was very surprised when the bouncer put a red velvet rope across the red carpet leading up to the escalator and first asked us to wait in the imaginary queue. After 5 minutes (when some imaginary people left the bar) he pulled the rope back to let us in but said to me «hey buddy you can’t come in, you are too drunk». I calmly explained to him that I was not drunk, as this was the first bar I had patroned this fine evening and had come here in the understanding that this was a place where we shouldn’t have any problems getting into with four well dressed and sober guys. He didn’t look convinced. It wasn’t until my charming and cheeky friend piped up and started giving him shit about his flat top hair-​do that he suddenly seemed to realise he was manning the door to one of Melbourne’s biggest dive bars and let us in.
We had our quiet drink and left the mostly empty bar — meeting the squad of police that were raiding the place on the stairwell down. Then it dawned on me — the red carpet must all be a show for the police, so they don’t realise that upstairs is a heaving mass of possibly under-​age, overly-​drunk people dancing and having the times of their lives. It obviously didn’t work this particular evening, but I’m sure they know what they are doing.

Time and time again I find myself being elevated by Schindler’s Lifts (there is a lift company that makes escalators and lifts, if I didn’t get a laugh out of you then I don’t know what I have to do here) as I enter The Joint.
Nobody want to come here, the place is crap. So why do I keep coming here? I actually have no idea. Maybe it is the really large balcony that looks over our beautiful city, or maybe it is because I can see the clock on flinders street station so I don’t need to keep looking at my phone. If your looking for somewhere to go for after work drinks I suggest you look somewhere else. This is a real dive into the deep end.

Cheap beer, ragged pool tables, 80s hair-​rock on the jukebox, directly below a backpacker hotel. The Joint is dodgy as hell.
It’s the good type of dodgy though. I’ve been there with my well-​off doctor brother while we ran the pool table for a few games, taking all comers. I’ve stopped by there with a date and chatted with a big beardy man who sat at our table for the fifteen minutes it took her to get a jug. I’ve missed out on snorting vodka with some British backpackers I was arguing with about the Hillsborough disaster.
It’s neutral territory, a watering hole in the old savannah style, where all the animals can stop and drink and not get eaten. After then go home on a train from Flinder’s St, or catch one of a half-​dozen trams down Elizabeth St.
It’s not a perfect metaphor, but it’s not a perfect pub.