The Peacock Hotel

Is there anything more Aussie than the local pub? I don’t think so. This pub has it all: a great beer garden, delicious icy cold beers, tasty pub food (hello eggplant parma) and laid-​back staff.
The front bistro is very much a gastro pub deal. Polished wood, nice glasses and a killer range of craft beers on tap. It’s all bistro service so order and pay at the counter.
Out back is where the magic happens. They have a lovely beer garden and courtyard where you can sit and chat to your mates. The back bar is pretty old school and being in central Northcote it’s also kept quite nice. This is a proper Straya’ pub and a few «old mates» still go here. One of the last pubs in this area to not go completely hipster.

One of the more impressive beer gardens in the suburb, a great place for a late night beer under the stars/​gigantic palm tree. Seriously, that tree is reason enough to visit.
Plenty of screens to watch the footy of your choice, provided that choice is AFL.
Meals are delivered quickly, and are good pub grub.

Love this place. Satisfying Friday night here. Good menu and the nude schnitzel with lemon and aioli was to die for. Accompanied by mash and seasonal vegetables. Ate in the dining room which has a policy of no under 18s. So no children, no crying and no impatience from little ones that can spoil it for others. Lovely ambience. We tend to choose a different place each Friday evening — good to not cook at the end of the week and want to avoid greasy takeaways. Hence we try and different place each week. But I suspect we will be back as there are other menu items to try.

The Peacock is all things to everybody (except Pokie fans, which I’m not) — formal dining area, beer garden, pool tables and sports on TV. Decent food and drink at a decent price.

I love the Peacock Inn Hotel for three reasons:
$ 10 lunch specials
$ 3 pots on Friday evenings
Fantastic outdoor seating.
It was close to work, and the staff are good for banter. Food is great, well worth considering if you’re up for lunch or dinner in Northcote and looking for a pub meal. Also, kiddie-​friendly until 8pm, after which time they start to encourage the little ones to be taken home.
On the downside, the inside can sometimes be a bit loud due to the two pinball machines, and sometimes the toilets smell a little funny.
From someone who has been to this place probably 100+ times, a great versatile venue, good for large groups and individuals alike.

The Peacock is a good local pub to have a few drinks with friends. It is a good place to watch the footy. I have spent many an afternoon/​night at the Peacock and have always enjoyed myself. The food is average & a tad overpriced but I go there for the company mostly. It has a friendly atmosphere and yes, you could say it is more of a ‘party pub’. If you are in Northcote and feelin’ thirsty, I recommend The Peacock :)

Go here for the beer. The food’s ok, but would be better if it wasn’t seemingly overpriced. There’s plenty of ambiance in the back and outdoor seating area. It’s quite crowded and loud late at night. Ideal for some folks, not so much for me.

The Peacock’s a bit of a contradiction. It occupies this fab spot at the top of the hill in Northcote, it has an enormous garden bar and oodles of wide open space inside; it services a huge clientele and it’s got decent bar areas, yet it still sucks.
They just don’t seem to know how to get the place right. It comes along with renovation sometimes — the look of the pub reeks of inner-​Sydney beer barn and the bogans follow. And Northcote has no shortage of bogans. They flock here in droves on sunny afternoons and the pub seems to cater for them perfectly.
The music is shithouse, nine times out of ten: generic jazz or crappy covers bands. The outside bar situation is far from ideal (expect long waits) and the table set up is far from intimate. Also we had an experience there recently during a footy game (one thing the place is great for is showing footy) where they refused to serve tap beer. Whether through a technical fault, or cheeky money-​grubbery, it turned into an expensive afternoon. I wouldn’t go back.

As I went to The Peacock during the Northcote Festival it’s difficult to judge the normal ambiance and vibe of the place. The day of the Festival was one of the first truly magnificent days of early spring so the ample beer garden was packed with 20-​somethings enjoying the rays.
The beer was served in plastic cups which is always a negative but understandable on a day as busy as this and with plenty of bench seating out back and a DJ starting to spin beats in the early afternoon the party was really kicking off.
A great place for a sunny day.

The Peacock is what I would describe as a party pub, and a party pub with many strings to its proverbial bow at that. Boasting a restaurant, café, bar and truly expansive beer garden — even by Melbourne standards — this Northcote favourite has an excellent food menu with special offers such as $ 15 steak and chips on Tuesday, as well as offering lighter fare such as saganaki and bruschetta that are so gobsmackingly bourgeois for a pub that you might just think yourself in Fitzroy.
On Sundays there is a band playing covers of artists such as Melbourne favourites Crowded House and their ilk. Well, a two-​man-​slightly-​over-​the-​hill-​band but a band all the same. The Peacock is not one of Melbourne’s cooler venues, don’t go there thinking that it is, but if you’re after great food, cheap drinks and a fun, unpretentious atmosphere then you can’t go far wrong with The Peacock.

I like the Peacock Hotel. I think of it as the gateway pub. It seems to delineate the boundary between outer suburb local pub and inner city trendy drinking hole. I often get the feeling that a lot of people come to this pub from the outer suburbs for a night out in the city. As such it has a genuine pub feel that can be missing in the other bars in the vicinity.
The Peacock has a large beer garden, pool tables, a juke box and a dining area. The food is pretty good in the medium to expensive price range of pub food. They do however, have daily specials worth a peek — $ 15 steak night every Tuesday for example. They also show a good variety of sport on the big screen and have a very entertaining pub quiz on Wednesday nights.
Oh and did I mention their $ 3 schooners, house wine and basic spirits deal they have every Thursday! Just be prepared to spend time around a host of vomiting university students if you want to get in on the $ 3 deal.