A sickening day for the bar industry

Yesterday was a horrible day for the bar industry, and a horrible day for hospitality. The allegations detailed in a series of stories about Swillhouse in The Sydney Morning Herald yesterday and today don’t make anyone look good — except for the women who have stood up and said something at what I imagine is a great personal cost.

The magnitude of this is astounding: hundreds if not thousands of people have worked for Swillhouse since Shady Pines Saloon opened in 2010. The venues have won numerous accolades. Their influence on Sydney bar culture — and the country’s more broadly — has been profound.

The criminal allegations in the story, of rape, sexual harassment, sexual assault, and stalking — they are unpardonable if true. I cannot imagine what that must feel like for the women who spoke up, and who must continue to endure it today as the rest of us all talk about it.

The allegations are sickening.

I love hospitality and the people who work in it. The idea that the broader public is looking at the industry and seeing it for its very worst is as heartbreaking as it is deserved. It brings shame upon a career that I otherwise see as a noble pursuit: to look after others, to show them hospitality, to welcome everyone, to show them a good time. Instead we’ve seen allegations of the very opposite of that. The alleged behaviour is a cancer on the industry, and despite years of “doing better” and “reckoning” that cancer is still there.

It has to be removed. It eats at the very thing that makes hospitality beautiful. Most people who work in these jobs do so because they care about others — sometimes that might be about the guests, but often it’s also about the people they work with, day to day, behind the stick, on the floor, in the kitchen. That camaraderie is what makes it strong.

But that camaraderie can be malformed. It can turn insular, it can be cliquey, exclusionary; it can be anything but hospitable. It can also create a blindness — wilful sometimes, more often not, but always inexcusable — to reprehensible and criminal behaviour.

I can’t believe there is a need to write this, yet here we are: No one should go to work and be raped. No one should go to work and be sexually assaulted. No one should be sexually harassed. It shouldn’t happen anywhere, ever. There is never an excuse.

But when it does happen at work the employer has a duty of care to their staff. Allegations need to be acted upon, quickly, with sensitivity and responsibility. If the details in The Sydney Morning Herald are true, it doesn’t appear that the duty of care Swillhouse owed some of its employees was properly exercised. It may turn out that there is more to their handling of these cases than has been reported so far. It is worth noting, too, that while The Sydney Morning Herald named the leadership team at Swillhouse, they have not named the pieces of shit who are alleged to have committed these acts of rape, harassment and stalking. Why is that? Is it because it is easier to allege what Swillhouse did than it is to accuse a rapist? I would imagine some of the same emails they have to support their accusations of Swillhouse management also name the alleged perpetrators.

Either way this tarnishes the industry as a whole. No one comes out of this looking good. The media doesn’t either — there’s a long history of awards and accolades a number of publications have awarded the Swillhouse group and its venues over the last 15 years.

Boothby is one such publication. Shady Pines Saloon last year won the All Time Great NSW award at the 2023 Boothby Best Bars NSW awards. It was voted as the highest ranked bar open for 10 years or more — a result I think would be different if the vote was held now. Gourmet Traveller announced yesterday that they would remove Restaurant Hubert from digital editions of their 2024 restaurant guide.

I spend a lot of my time talking and writing about the good things in the bar industry. I do think things have become better, but I’m well aware that I thought the same thing 10 years ago. There’s a high probability that I am wrong.

So a note to the men: We’re often fast friends in hospitality. We need to be faster in casting out those men who prey upon women, who take advantage of women, who think they’re better than women. You don’t owe them an explanation, either — if you want to confront them by all means do. If you have reservations about someone, trust that instinct, and cast them out of your life; tell your real friends about these types, too. Spread the word.

There is likely to be more uncomfortable and distressing stories to come, but spare a thought for the people who had to go to work at those venues yesterday. There were people who strapped on the apron at The Baxter Inn. There were people who had to set up the bar for service at Restaurant Hubert. There are many good people who have worked there in the past or who have just joined recently who have had no part in any of this. There will be people there for whom a stint at one of the venues would once have been a highlight on their resume.

So I’m sad that genuine, hardworking people will be tarnished by this, that they have to deal with this. I am angry that these alleged acts happened, and heartbroken for those to whom it happened. And I am sickened that this beautiful thing called hospitality has been denigrated by some who profess to practice it, but who should have no place in our bars, our community, or our lives.