Plans are in action to reopen Newtown’s landmark Hub Theatre after more than two decades, as a new craft beer and entertainment-focused pub called Urban House of Brews.
The pending Urban House of Brews (UHB) is slated to be a collective of Australian artisan beers and theming and a distillery, entwined with on-trend menus and a smorgasbord of entertainment.
Theatre impresario Harry Clay opened Clay’s Bridge Theatre on the site on Bedford Street in 1913, welcoming the only live vaudeville venue in Newtown during the early years of the 20th century. In 1934 it was converted into a cinema.
The Cash Store building at 218-222 King Street embraced the slogan ‘The Hub of Newtown’, and Broadway Theatre Company, which began there, adopted the name when they transferred operations to Bedford Street, ideally located directly opposite the train station, launching The Hub.
During the 1950s and 60s The Hub was used to screen non-English-language films for the large population of migrant workers in the area, seating 1100 people over two levels, and in the seventies it became a notorious house for ‘blue’ movies.
The Hub closed in the 90s and bar a few brick-a-brac sales and stage shows the historic Newtown landmark has remained vacant ever since.
In 2014 hospitality consultant Michael Vale was invited to Munich Germany to see a Bavarian brewery and tavern established in 1417, amid plans to launch a large-scale Bavarian-style tavern in Sydney. Vale was impressed with the Munich venue, set on several thousand square metres, housing literally dozens of German beer bars, each representing their home breweries throughout cities, counties and districts all over Germany.
Vale’s plan is for the UHB at The Hub to be an Australian ‘embassy’ of the country’s finest independent craft brewers, from five different states, as well as a Sydney-based artisan distillery. Newtown is seen as the perfect location, already the unofficial home of the Sydney craft beer culture, boasting the likes of Young Henry’s and Mountain Goat.
UHB will be up to 1,100 square meters in total, including a 280sqm mezzanine level earmarked for the distiller. It will offer a 100-seat outdoor beer garden and total seating capacity of around 650.
It will include a fully-equipped, state-of-the-art commercial kitchen and comprehensive food offering, led by two revolving wood-fire pizza ovens and a special Portuguese revolving char grill.
But Vale says the “main point of differentiation” will be the pub’s diverse range of entertainment, bringing every live music genre imaginable as well as live stand-up comedy and drag nights. Other shows will bring innovative electronic musical tribute events on a full theatre screen, heralding an extensive range of tributes from Bob Marley to Louis Armstrong to the Beatles, and art-house black and white movies.
There is also a plan for a live-streaming contract with New York City jazz and blues bars and stand-up comedy houses.
“We look at this as the musical version of the world famous I-MAX theatres,” suggests Vale.
Michael Vale Hospitality and team will reportedly be the driving force behind the inaugural Australian Urban House of Brews, set to be launched at the former The Hub of Newtown in coming months.
