Concrete Playground

Popular with students, artists and the battered men who've been frequenting it for the past forty years, The Courthouse is a beloved staple of Newtown's drinking spots. Grungy, relaxed and unpretentious with one of Sydney's finest beer gardens, I have an unabashed devotion to this place.

Inside you'll find pool tables, a collection of pinball machines and a couple of vinyl couches with the stuffing falling out of them. The interior of the pub is exactly what you'd expect: dark wood on scruffy walls, well-trodden carpet and a gallery of old Sydney Swans posters. A pair of arty student types with silly beards sit at the bar alongside a bloke in a Bonds singlet, nursing a schooner, sporting an entirely un-silly beard.  During AFL season expect not to be able to hold a conversation anywhere near the football-scarfed fans surrounding the televisions.

There's no cocktail list - this is a proper pub - but there's an impressive range of beers on tap as well as a very decent selection of wine, and in the summer months you're likely to be able to get your hands on some pear or apple cider. A couple of years ago they tried to fancy up the food menu, some of which works and some of which doesn't. The more gourmet options aren't exactly cut-price, but at the end of the day a standard bowl of wedges or nachos to soak up the beer is really all you want at a place like this.

But the real draw-card at The Courthouse is the beer garden. From the wooden veranda, you gaze down onto a maze of long wooden benches surrounded by frangipani trees and tropical plants which, bafflingly, still manage to grow amongst the spilled beer and cigarette butts. The courtyard is what really makes The Courthouse, packed wall to wall even in the middle of winter. You need to get there early on in the night to get a table to yourself, particularly on a Friday or Saturday night, but because they're so big and packed together you're more likely to make friends at The Courthouse than at most drinking establishments in Sydney. And that's really saying something.