Quarry Hotel

If you are going to The Quarry for the greatest meal of your life, you’re going to be disappointed. If you are going for honest pub food, vibrant atmosphere and good service, you’re in luck.
The Quarry, is the type of pub that is seemingly a dying breed of ya local… well at least it feels that way. You used to be able to go to any corner pub and order a reliable Parma, house white or beer with your friends and listen to some average, old school tunes in the company of pool tables, dart boards and maybe a random keno screen and go home a little buzzed, happy and without breaking the bank.
These days, every pub is either calling themselves a «gastro pub» (most likely a normal pub but charging more because they are using roquette instead of ice berg) (no beef with actual gastro pubs) and using this as an excuse to charge double for food and drinks and lower their quality of service. On the other end of the spectrum, there are pubs who have plain just thrown the towel in. Defrosted Kiev from Woolies, with half mashed peas with ketchup and a pot– $ 10. Sweet deal, but you’re lucky to get out alive without a disease with your shoes in tact.
The Quarry is like the old pubs you remember. Friendly, reliable and with the sweet clanks of billiard balls in the distance as you peacefully enjoy your brew and feed, with helpful yet passive aggressive staff. It’s awesome. Much recommend!
A main meal and alcoholic bev for under $ 25, plus specials all throughout the week!

I discovered this place quite by accident when I was wandering along Lygon Street a few years ago. It looks pretty old and rundown (and asking for a bit of a paint) but I felt that it gave this place a lot of character. It’s an okay pub — actually I quite like it, though I don’t stop by here all that often (since it is a little bit out of my way, though when I do write about them it does give me the urge to go and visit it again). It’s a fairly run of the mill pub, though it does have some decent beers on tap (nothing hugely fancy though), and does have a nice ambience about it. It’s your typical inner north pub, which means no pokies. I really should visit this place again.

I’ve been here a few times, and I know what I am going to get each time — generally friendly service with basic beers. That’s about all you could expect from Quarry Hotel. Anything more and you’re setting the bar too high.
The beer selection here is indeed a bit basic — on tap, they have nothing much more than Coopers and your basic VB/​Carlton type water. If that’s what you’re looking for, it’s perfectly adequate. Sometimes, that’s all you want, and so be it.
I have had one meal here, and it was incredible disappointing. The beef burger I ordered had nearly zero flavor, and the potato wedges were cold. All this for $ 15. I won’t make the mistake of eating here again.
The service, however, has always been fairly friendly, so I cannot say too many bad things about this place beyond its food.

This place is a bit of a shit hole. They show footy and other sports and TVs really dominate the eye line. Apart from that, it’s a bit of a student hovel that relies on happy hours and deals to draw the customers in.
Used to be that the Quarry was a semi decent spot to pick up a few beers or a bottle of plonk if you were eating at any of the restaurants on this strip. Now that a bunch of quality liquor stores have popped up in the area, you wouldn’t even bother with that.
Take on appearances. It ain’t much better on the inside…

My mate and I popped in here a couple of weeks ago because we heard they had a good pinball machine. They do, but unfortunately it is situated under the TVs and it was the night of the AFL finals.
Even as we attempted to stand in front of the machine, the groans came from the crowd and we quickly moved on.
This place feels like a country pub in the city. It’s large with a couple of big rooms that have been renovated by someone with bad taste. The whole place feels just a bit off.
We stuck around for a beer to see if we could wait out the footy crowd, but we couldn’t. Not to say I hate football, but when you aren’t in the mood for it, it can really ruin the vibe.
This place is a footy pub, with foxtel and a heap of TV’s and to bump up numbers on the weekend the bring in all the latest Dj’s to play the latest and crapest top 40 hits.

So, I used to work here during my Uni days and dear God was it a depressing time. As a totally lost and aimless student I remember watching a bunch of sports mad alcoholics drink their livers away with alarming regularity and feel kind of at a loss as to what the heck was wrong with people.
Anyway, enough of my emotional baggage and on to the actual venue. The Quarry is good for blokes who like sport, pool and beer, and enjoy watching women on the wrong side of forty get dressed up and get their cougar on while drinking sparkling chardy mixed with orange juice.
The food, which is of the cheap and cheerful bar variety, is excellent, there is a bottle shop next door and the bar staff make really good coffee.
One for after-​work or pre-​game bevvys.

Whilst living in Brunswick East and before having Foxtel, the Quarry was an absolute godsend. It was one of the few places in that area that had a lot of sport on. For example late on a Saturday or Sunday evening they would often be showing the early games of the English Premier League. The atmosphere would usually be pretty good and there would be a lot of mingling going on.
With so many TVs they would offer cater to multiple audiences if they wanted to watch different sports too.
Another good thing about the Quarry Hotel is that it is a bottle shop as well. In the surrounding area there are a number of restaurants that are BYO — Thaila Thai and Kakke Di Hatti to name a couple. It is a good place to get your cheap drinks as well as your cheap eats in Brunswick East.
And the food is good and honest too.

I like The Quarry. Definitely a misfit in Brunswick East, this worker’s pub makes no attempt to hide what it is. With a pool table, a bottle shop and an unpretentious dining setup you don’t come here to sip chardonnay — you come to watch sport while having a few beers with your mates.
The beers are cheap, the tv screens are liberally spread around, the staff are easy-​going guys and there’s glorious fox sports on the screen — something that is ridiculously difficult to find in this area.
There are cheap beer deals on weeknights from 5−6pm and daily newspapers to read over a quiet beer and some football from a far-​flung corner of the globe on TV. It’s heaven in other words.
Not a place to be judged for what it isn’t, accept it for what it is.

I have mixed feelings about the Quarry. It’s not especially nice to look at on the inside, but there are some good beers on tap and the outside seating by the side street gets a lot of sun and is great for people watching.
I’ve been dragged here once or twice by my man who is a sports fan. There are lots of telly screens in the rooms of the Quarry and they are willing to show whatever sports event that’s being televised as long as you ask nicely.
Having said that, my man once came home after visiting the Quarry to watch Liverpool play, and reported that he’d narrowly escaped what could have been a bloody altercation between some alcohol-​charged peeps and the guy who lives upstairs. Something to do with noise levels, and the almost-​fight involved pool cues and trying to bang down the guy’s door.
The cops eventually turned up and sorted the problem out. Thankfully, my man is fine, and the Quarry is still going strong, which leads me back to my mixed feelings about this place.

The Quarry Hotel is a get-​what-​you-​pay-​for stand-​up pub. Much like every other pub in Melbourne, there are couches for lounging, pool for playing, brew for drinking (more than 10 on tap) and food for eating — all of which is well-​priced and good quality. The only thing it’s missing is a band room, but there is more of that available in town. DJs play on Saturdays, but on most occasions there are better things to do on Lygon Street. A meal or a quiet one would be my first reason to go, good start to a night or a late afternoon stint.