What to expect when luxe hifi bar Honeydripper opens
Downstairs all day, but upstairs? High fidelity cocktails and sounds all night.
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Adelaide is about to get a new hi-fi addition to its East End. Honeydripper is going to bring an all day, coffee-until-cocktails venue to Frome Street, next to the Crowne Plaza hotel, with music and atmosphere a high priority.
Co-owner Sean Howard (Memphis Slim’s and Cry Baby among others) is the creative mind behind the venue, but it will be fellow partner Raph Thompson who leads the Honeydripper day to day. “Raph is the venue manager slash shareholder, he’s the ex-venue manager of Osteria Oggi. He will essentially be the face of the venue,” Sean says.
Opening from 8am each day, they’ll be doing coffee and food until the split level venue morphs into something a little more salubrious as the day wears on.
“We’ll be bagels in the morning, coffee in the morning,” says Sean. “And then somewhere between 2pm and 4pm we get a feeling that it’ll transition away from being cafe more towards bar.”
To facilitate the daytime use of the space, they’ve decked out the downstairs with power points galore. “So that people can plug in their laptops, get a coffee, do their work, and a glass of wine when they’re done,” says Sean. Expect to see your friendly travelling brand ambassadors taking their office hours at Honeydripper.
But the real magic — the big draw for the venue — will be happening upstairs, in the small cocktail bar that opens at night. “This is kind of the focus point of the entire venue,” Sean says.
The bar here is where cocktails happen — with two bartenders working away, separated by a DJ in the middle.
“We just acquired a record collection from Gene Farris, from Chicago,” says Sean. “He’s a famous Chicago DJ, so we purchased three and a half thousand-odd records from him. They’re currently sitting in my lounge room, waiting to be catalogued. It took us about 12 months to negotiate, everything across the line.” The collection spans soul, funk, house, and “everything under the sun,” Sean says.
They have a custom gold plated Condesa mixer, which will take place in the centre of the bar, with three SL1210 turntables and two big Klipsch Heritage La Scala speakers built into the back bar.
And taking inspiration from Double Chicken Please in New York, the bar itself will be flat — “like a kitchen island,” Sean says — with cutout stainless steel sections and 1.2 metres deep.
When it comes to bar setups, we don’t think we’ve seen this DJ between two bartenders style before — proof that there’s always a surprise on the way in the bar world.
Whereas service at the bar downstairs will be at the bar, upstairs is table service.
“Upstairs is meant to be more intimate, a little bit romantic, a little bit more moody,” Sean says. “The lights are going to be down low. It’s just going to be a little bit more of a relaxed atmosphere upstairs.”
If there’s an overall aesthetic that you’ll feel at Honeydripper, it’s 1970s Laurel Canyon in Los Angeles.
“We were going to go pretty heavy with it in terms of shaggy walls and whatnot,” Sean says. “We’ve reined it in a little bit, however. But it’s still got lots of orange and warm tones through the place.”
Drinks-wise, they’ll have just three beers available: Kirin, Coopers Pale Ale, and Guinness (which these days, clearly is a must have).
The cocktails are being developed by Alex Bubba Johnston and Josh Mack, and will be of the “clean, contemporary” sort, according to Sean. “I would say they’ll be a little bit more decadent than what you would get at somewhere like Re or Byrdi. There’ll be some romanticising on the bolder flavours of the 20th century.”
They’ve been working on the 200 person capacity venue now for over two years, with some construction developments getting in the way, but are hoping to have the doors open before the depths of winter set in.
Like we said up top, the second issue of Boothby magazine is about to land — to get issue two and the next three issues to your home, you can sign up and support Boothby right here. Thanks for your support!