DOWN ON THE CORNER

Corner Bar

632 Darling St Rozelle, NSW 2039
(02) 9810 7070

The small bar trend reaches further into the Inner West with Corner Bar. Before becoming a watering hole it was actually a chicken shop called Hatch, and owned by Lindsay Egan. Lindsay partnered up with designers Chris Jolliffe and Ryan Singer to renovate and reposition the business as a bar/restaurant following licence approval. Chris Jolliffe headed up the design and fitout and Bluesky Contstructions were recruited to carry out building works.

The bar is clad in timbers recycled from the old Double Bay Wharf and topped with concrete poured on site. The rear wall has naturally rusted sheet steel. Wall render was removed to expose the original brickwork. New sashless windows from Vision 3 were installed down the dining area wall to open up the narrow space and provide increased visual access to the passing Darling Street traffic. The audio solution was achieved via Sonos Play 5 wireless units placed throughout the venue, which avoided the need to run cabling and allowed audio streaming from the iPad till system.

The team painted the ceiling matte black, and an original 8-metre long hand painted vintage bus scroll was installed to run the length of the venue. Ship bunker lights taken from a tanker all the way in India were installed on the brick walls, with copper piping used as conduit.

“The site was narrow and with no windows it felt closed in and uninviting”, the designers said. “Externally the shop had poor presence, not making use of its prime corner location on busy Darling Street.”

“By installing large windows and increasing the seating areas we were able to achieve maximum use of the space and create an attention-grabbing presence for the passing foot and vehicle traffic.”

Industrial elements like steel sheeted walls, ship bunker lights and factory work lamps were coupled with softer items such as the chesterfield banquette and ornate cast iron table bases to create a comfortable, interesting drinking and dining space.