Hotel Sweeney’s

Sweeney’s is a great Sydney pub: a classic corner hotel just a block from Town Hall, and the perfect place to get a good, cheap beer before the hungover bartenders of the small bar scene stir to open the doors of their late-​night speakeasies. Don’t let the ground floor fool you — there’s more to this place than a bunch of hi-​vis workers who’ve knocked off at noon, slugging back schooies from a bank of VB taps. Hit the stairwell quickly: observe the preserved stained glass art and airy, leather-​couch furnished spaces on your way to the rooftop garden.
The small bar up top is quiet, simple and bright with colourful charm. The music’s groovy and you might even be lucky enough to get the added atmosphere of onions grilling on a portable barbecue. The current idea is that a new local brewery takes over the taps every week; this weekend it was Riverside (out of Parramatta), and it was very easy to polish off a jug of their American Amber Ale followed by a hefty glass of the 10% abv Imperial Stout. These are idiosyncratic beers, the kind you’ve usually got to travel to specialty bottle-​os — if not the brewery itself — to find. Do yourself a favour and try a few.
There’s a party vibe — and a lot of cigarettes — in the evenings, and as the summer nights grow longer and warmer it’s going to be easy to hang around. It’s hardly an epic, beachfront beer garden, but with such great beer — and assuming you thought to bring good company — it’s a fantastic and underrated Sydney spot.

Brilliant upstairs bar, however they need to make it non-​smoking so we can enjoy our food outdoors! They’re hamstrung by the NSW laws, however they have the option to make this area non-​smoking for everyone’s benefit. Currently smells like an ashtray which is a shame because it’s one of the few innovative bars in Sydney. Smokers could can always go down the four flights of stairs to the roadside to smoke, they could probably do with the exercise!

Sweeney’s, should be renamed Smelly’s. Upon entering, your nostrils are greeted with a vommy mix of sawdust and spew, and don’t you just love that.
This is a bar that’s all about levels.
Entry Level is outside for the durry munchers. You’ll see 2 tables worth sucking back on darts, whilst they talk about everything and nothing. They’ll give you a «don’t judge us» glance as you head inside.
Ground Level is your standard mug punters. Pokies and Flat screens combine with VB and New to churn out the usual grumpy chatter, «ripoff that was a try, ref needs to go to specsavers», and my personal favourite — you charge $ 7 for a schooey of veebs?
Level 1 is for «we are out of that beer at the moment» and mediocre Thai-​meets-​Burgers fare. The fact that the staff are clearly running a Thai restaurant but offer other options, should be the dead giveaway that you aren’t going to enjoy your meal.
Level 2 is for the not-​quite-​hipsters-​but-​weally-​wannabe. They have the bottom half sorted — skinny jeans, and tiny shoes, but they’ve neglected up-​top. T-​shirts and standard dress shirts appear where we expect too tight buttoned-​all-​the-​way-​to-​the-​top tailored fits, and beards… where the heck are the too-​ginger beards?
Level 3, or is that 3.5, involves a split space. A random side room with beer quotes and a telly that looks like it was never really intended to be a room, and then the rooftop. A small, super-​packed space chock-​a-​block with backpackers looking for a cheap beer or 10 before heading back to who knows where, with who knows whom.
Smelly’s is situated between work and the train station, so it is almost impossible to avoid at times, however if I was a smarter man, I’d make sure to avoid it each and every time… something about the place just lures me in sometimes though… gotta be sawdust and spew… gotta be.

Cool laid-​back place for a few weekend bevvies, Hotel Sweeney is a pretty huge multi-​level bar, each level with its own slightly different feel — all of them chilled.
The rooftop is the best bet on a good night — not amazing views but still nice to be outside in the middle of town — but you might struggle for a table (or even standing space) and when we were there they had a bunch of new Mountain Goat beers on tap so much fun was had going through the full flight.
As out-​of-​towners we found Google Maps had a little trouble locating the place, but once we found it we abandoned plans of a crawl in the CBD and stayed there all night.

This place is a popular Friday lunch spot for a number of my colleagues. When I first asked them about the place, they said that when you enter the place, it looks quite dodgy, so just look in the direction of the stairs and make your way all the way to the top. I decided to check it out on a Friday after work and took their advise and headed up to the top of the stairs and there I saw a cool roof top bar. Quite a nice hidden gem in the town hall area. Just one floor below there are comfy couches where you can enjoy your cider or cold one. The music isn’t too loud either so you can have a conversation without having to yell into each other’s ear. The food is quite interesting too for a pub as they serve Thai. That’s in addition to the usual pub food. Another interesting thing to mention is that they also have a meat raffle on that evening when I was there.

Cheap eats and a hidden gem of a roof too bar with reasonably priced drinks. In you’re in this neighbourhood, it’s worth a stroll to check it out. I wouldn’t go out of my way otherwise.
It’s an easy local.

Reasonably priced drinks in the CBD. Convenient to Town Hall and Darling Harbour areas. Roof top open air deck is particularly nice on a clear day but is soon over run with smokers. Also features a pretty good Thai kitchen on the 2^nd level.
Great place to sit on the ground floor with your drinks and watch the parade of characters going in and out. Friendly staff. Good prices. Alciohol.
Sweeney’s knows what it is and doesn’t try and be anything but, which is somewhat refreshing.

Very nice place to have a drink on the rooftop. The music is not to loud, so it’s perfect to chat with friends /​meet new people.
And the most important: it’s cheap! 4 $ for a beer in Sydney…

Good old Sweeney’s…
Definitely one of my favourite pubs in the CBD, this multi-​level bar/​restaurant has much more to offer than a pokie machine and a cheap schooner (though, you can easily find both of those things here). Don’t let the dodgy ground floor frighten you away, because it only gets better with every set of stairs. Whether for a game of pool, a rooftop hangout or an amazingly authentic Thai dinner, you can count on Sweeney’s to deliver a good night.
Coming back to the ground floor… yes, it’s full of tradies making bets on dogs and drinking piss. I don’t think I’ve ever actually stayed down there for a drink for fear of being blinded by a flouro vest. I usually march straight up to the rooftop area on level 4 to order a drink and enjoy the beautiful Sydney weather. And after all the stairs you climb to get up there, your drink is well deserved. They’ve got some decent beers on tap, as well as a cider… and for an inner-​city location, the drinks are not too pricey.
If the rooftop is jam-​packed, then level 3 is also a good place to sit and imbibe. It’s much quieter and more chilled out than the rooftop, so at least you can hear the conversation you’re having with your mates. There’s a juke box with a pretty wide selection, so music isn’t usually a problem (that is, of course, until some wanker decides to put on Bön Jovi…).
And the best part about this place is that if you get hungry, there is a restaurant that offers pub grub and awesome Thai food – hands down, the best Thai I’ve had in Sydney to date. I went with a Thai friend of mine who not only confirmed that the food was really good, but who also ordered the food in Thai, which I think got us some special treatment. They use all the right ingredients – i.e. lemongrass, lime leaves, Thai basil and CHILLIES. I’m rather picky with Thai food, but the food at Sweeney’s has never failed to impress me. Never tried the pub grub… but why would you, considering all the wonderful options on the Thai menu?
The only drawback of Sweeney’s that comes to mind is the fact that the rooftop bar is almost always rammed full of post-​work drinkers. Rain or shine, this place is usually quite crowded. Best thing to do is get there early, or at least get your mates there early to grab a table. But like I said before, if level 4 is too crowded, then level 3 is usually a viable option.
Hope you enjoy this favoured local as much as I do!

Wow — this place place is full of «trashbags» on the weekend! If you’re a back packer looking for a cheap, tasteless place to hangout, then this is for you.

Catching up with a friend from out of Sydney we began our day with a few schooners at Hotel Sweeney’s. A four story bar which had the cricket on the TV, a kitchen that served hot food and a great relaxed pub atmosphere.
We sat for most of the morning in the ground floor bar, downing beer and watching the cricket. Then for lunch, which was quite tasty indeed
Then, lunch over, we journeyed to the top floor to sit in the open rooftop courtyard where it began to rain. But this didn’t dampen our spirits, only our turtle necks.
The place began to fill up as the day progressed and the atmosphere increased. It is a friendly bar and conveniently located right near Town Hall Station. The beer is well priced and the food was quite good.
It’s a good old fashioned pub with little pretence, a fun place to meet up with friends when you’re not into the overtly classy, over dressed, over priced bar that is so prominent in Sydney these days.

We’re coming into summer, so you need to know about Sweeney’s.
No, I’m not talking about Dave Eggers’ literary journal (though I often mistakenly call this place McSweeney’s), but at a stretch this pub might share some of its roguish charm.
Hotel Sweeney’s is a pre-​loved local pub in dire need of a facelift. Downstairs looks like you’re stepping back in time to the 70s (not that that’s a bad thing!), then, as others have mentioned before me, you have to climb and climb and climb a few more dank and dire looking floors before you reach the summit, and the huge payoff, of Sweeney’s: the rooftop.
On a summer’s eve Sweeney’s rooftop is a sanctuary. Perhaps Sydneysiders lack the requisite thighmaster-​strength to tackle the rickety staircase (or are put off by the floors in between), because the rooftop is often rather sparsely populated. All the better to settle in with a few friends for an evening of ales and tales.
The staff are all delightful, and if you get peckish the thai food downstairs comes in large servings for a trice. But you’re really going to Sweeney’s for the rooftop — and maybe while you’re up there you’ll scratch something in your Moleskine worthy of McSweeney’s.

Ascending the lower three floors of Hotel Sweeney is a little like emerging from an airlock. The first floor is a pretty routine and quiet bar with a prominent racing form section in the corner. The second floor houses the Thai restaurant (which never seems to be open, no matter when I visit) and a few scattered tables here and there. The third floor houses a pool table and the oldest (and yet, not entirely unpleasant) bathroom I have ever used. Finally, after an extremely narrow staircase which will, on busy nights, necessitate making a lot of body contact with the people descending, you pop out into fresh air and the rooftop area.
I remember the first time we emerged onto the rooftop, after essentially following the staircase out of curiosity. Our eyes bugged as we saw where we were, having entirely been expecting some kind of attic or a dead end. This rooftop area has a little quasi-​bar which closes earlier than the pub proper and the entire area can be hired for your function. I’ve attended as both the guest of a private function and as a random patron and it worked well in both situations. The crowd is generally pretty laid back, given the perseverance required to both discover and make it to the roof.
Even if you don’t make it to the summit, the bar staff are friendly throughout, so don’t be afraid to make base camp and bide your time until you can get to the top. It should be noted that the rooftop is not open at the same hours as the main pub.

Hotel Sweeneys on the corner of Druitt and Clarence Streets in the city may not be all that it seems. Upon entry there is a small drinking area with a TAB in it which houses what seems to be regulars. There is a friendly feel to it though and depending what time and day you’re in, you may find yourself in a meat tray raffle.
Head up a couple of flights of stairs and you’ll come across a Thai restaurant. Ok at first glance it doesn’t look overly flash but meal sizes are good, they look and smell great and prices will suit the lesser budgets.
Keep heading up some more stairs and possibly feeling quite puffed and nauseus, you’ll find your self in a roof top beer garden which seems to be the place of preference for a majority of people in this place.
Hotel Sweeneys is not all it seems at all. It’s better!

Walk up the steps of the Hotel Sweeney and you’ve found a hidden gem in the heart of Sydney. The rooftop bar hosts raging events and parties, with the venue almost always packed to the brim. Bask in the summer breeze and relax to mixed beats, remixes and old school music.
Enjoy sweeping views of the city while you sip a cold beer. Perch on one of the stools as you catch your breath from climbing a hectic flight of stairs. Despite looking a bit rough from the outside, the venue boasts history and charm. Besides, first impressions don’t always count! Hotel Sweeney’s is quieter than your average library on the first two levels, but raging on the third.
Tight spaces and cramped seating is one of the major drawbacks of the venue. Someone could pinch your bottom– and you’d never know who!