Turf Bar

Severely-​underrated for what it is — a pub where you can watch any meaningful sporting event on multiple screens. Located in an otherwise unremarkable part of Queen Street, it’s half a story underground and has dark wood everywhere. It’s spacious and you can play pool in the back or have a quiet conversation in a booth.
Aside from that, it’s pretty standard for pints and pub food. You don’t come here for artisanal anything, you come here to barrack for your NFL or AFL team. 4 stars for being reliable when you need to catch the big game.
Free wi-​fi, too.
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Disclosure — I’m a former Unilocal employee.

Let me start with a caveat to my trip… I came in at 5:25pm on a Monday…
Pros:
— Crispy thick fries which were nicely salted
Cons: (yes that is all the pros)
— Didn’t see an employee for almost 20 minutes, poor start.
— ordered the Monday special, which was a porter house steak with fries and a salad for 15 bucks. My steak was some kind of a like warm sirloin, albeit not the worse steak I’ve had it was nothing to be desired and the farthest thing from a porterhouse. Temperature of the meat was medium rare like I had requested, but my bet was this was cooked on Saturday and reheated…

Nice pub, sports always playing but isn’t all agro and filthy like some sports bars.
Two big screens, either showing different AFL matches or AFL and rugby.
$ 5 pints of Carlton Draft, $ 5 basics on Friday nights 4−7pm.
Fri after 8pm 2 cocktails for $ 20.
Gets an alright crowd on a Saturday and Sunday — but not so busy you can’t get a good seat.
$ 15 for a dozen wings on Sat Sun, good quality. Rest of the food I’ve had has been decent.
Special mention are the private booths: 6 – 10 person booths off to the side, complete with TV and privacy curtain. These can be booked head of time.
This has become our local for football binges.

A place that goes of on a Wednesday night. It’s a place for all the young people to unite. Target demographic are back packers. Most people at turf bar are under 25 years old, students and back packers. It’s a laid back and casual environment where people come to dance the night away. It has a kind of an alternative feel about it.
Good for a mid week night out. Also good place to socialise, lounge, get together and go dancing. There’s competitions and give aways on stage. They make people come up on stage and do crazy stuff, in return get a prize. One of the competitions involved demonstrating as many sex positions possible in 1 minute and put as many pegs on a persons face in 1 minute. Turf Bar has a lot prize and give aways.
Pros: Free entrance, cheap drinks, dry ice on stage, the stage lights, lounge area, pool table, pizza, interesting people and interesting atmosphere. If you want a place to hang out on Wednesday night, turf bar goes off till morning.
Cons: Not somewhere I visit regularly, it’s not my cup of tea. I’m not much of a bar person either. A lot of people seem to enjoy it. My only criticism is the music. Most of the music played is not my favourite.
I’m not a regular there. I’ve only been there 3 times, and only on Wednesday. But for the uni students and back packers you may find this place quite enjoyable and love it. A lot of my younger friends love the place and are a regular there.
Overall verdict: neutral. There are other places I find much more enjoyable. Higher rating if I found the place more appealing.

I quite like the atmosphere of this bar. They’ve got good music and nice lounging areas. The drinks are fairly standard in price but I am happy to say that they serve Guinness. If that isn’t to your fancy then they’ve also got the whole array of CUB drinks too. There are a couple of pool tables out the back that I made good use, especially as it is free to play after 7pm.
Another thing I respect about the bar is that they have a large tub of water bottles at the front door, free of charge. I actually made good use of them towards the end of the night. It is a good uni bar that I’ll probably pay a few more visits to in the near future.

The only place I could find playing the NCAA National Championship football game.
Lots of TVs though the projector should be upgraded to highdef. Food and beer is good too. I had a pizza. Service is excellent.
I wish they had chicken wings though…

If you love American sports and a legitimate reason for a drink or two before midday, this is your joint!

I spent many an evening here over the course of my recent vacation to Melbourne since it was very close to the hotel. Great food, great beer, and great service! Also, love the classic feel of the place.

OMG try the burger if you are hungry. Its great!

Not bad, not bad at all.
Went here to watch the A League soccer with Paul C. and catch up with a few mates. It was a pizza special night, pizzas were honest. Menu covered typical pub fare — I tried the salt and pepper calamari and it was fine. Beer cold. Sports on TV. All good.

I don’t like sports, but for some reason, I always end up at sports related events. For the first game of the Rugby World Cup 2011 (New Zealand versus Tonga), I was told to meet at Turf Bar, a sports bar located on Queens Street.
When I got there, it was PACKED with people. I don’t know if it is usually this packed, but I wasn’t surprised — it was an international event. I was there for 40 minutes waiting for my friends. Basically, I realised Turf Bar wasn’t for me. Lots of people watching sports, but if you’re really into sports, this place is for you.
They do have an interesting pub menu. They have the usual fares including parmas and fish and chips, but they also have duck cassoulet and herb crusted pork cutlets for $ 26.

Sport, sport, sport, sport, sport, sport, sport, sport, sport, sport, sport, sport, sport, sport, sport the ‘news’ blackboard reads as you walk down the stairwell into the basement entrance to this pub. And sport is what you’ll get.
Sure they have Guinness on tap and a pantheon of deep fried, battered pub food. But really — you want to go there for the sport. Or if you are a female is isn’t into competitive games, you can go there in order to prove that a great many guys would rather watch the footy than your little coy smile. But then again — just go there if you want to watch some sport and have a great atmosphere to do it in.

I’ve never been to as many sports bars as I have in Melbourne and while they’re still not my favourite places to go for a tipple, Turf Bar is undoubtedly one of the better ones.
Sure, it’s underground, ergo not the best place to spend an afternoon on one of Melbourne’s sunnier days; granted, there are invariably so many bouncers on the door that you sometimes feel as if you’re making a conjugal visit to your beloved rather than joining him to watch a rugby game, but Turf is a pretty damn good sports bar nonetheless.
Located on Queen Street in the heart of the CBD, Turf Bar & Restaurant boasts a dizzying amount of screens on which you can even watch two different sports or games simultaneously; a variety of seating options — tables, booths, bench style seating etc — and a pretty good menu of pretty standard pub grub.
Service can be a little slow owing to how hugely popular this place is but this is the only real downside to one of Melbourne’s most popular sports bars.

Arabella G. I concur. The heavies on the door are intimidating (albeit friendly) and I thought unnecessary given that on the Saturday night I went in there was enough room to swing a cat, dog, antelope or whatever mascot represents the opposition to your team that day.
After careful research I ventured here a couple of weeks ago trying to find somewhere in this AFL-​mad town to watch the cricket on Fox. It was advertised on the website so I was pretty confident, only to be told to wait until the football — read NRL AS well as AFL — was over.
Pretty unimpressed so after two pints and no cricket I left.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s heaps of screens here and it’s a good inner-​city location for out-​of-​towners just don’t expect obscure sports (or quasi sports like darts) on demand.
Underground location is great for winter, summer not so much and the bar service was friendly and efficient.