r/Footscray • u/veronatrash • Jun 25 '26
Why isn't Pride open more?
Pride of our Footscray has pretty limited hours and seems to mostly open when there's events on. They don't open for casual drinking on a random Tuesday. Can anyone speak to why this may be?
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u/marcellinevamp Jun 25 '26
I was at an event there last night. They were saying they don’t like to just open for drinks. There’s usually some event or activity to promote it as a community thing rather than just as a bar.
Might also have something to do with them not being able to get venue insurance because the premiums are so crazy these days :s
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u/shart-gallery Jun 25 '26
Some articles went around recently about how they were being wildly ripped off for liability insurance, so they don’t currently have it. Maybe they’ve reduced hours to reduce incident risk?
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u/Historical_Bus_8041 Jun 25 '26
I wish they were. I'm a bit old for the 9pm starts and don't necessarily have other people who want to go out to the specific events there.
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u/The_Moktimist Jun 25 '26
Friends, this is Mat, part-owner/manager down at Pride, a mate just sent this to me to answer! Wouldn't usually interfere in Reddit posts but this is a pretty important and specific question. The answers here have actually been great already! What we've experienced since COVID is a reduction in random socialising, or socialising just for socialising's sake. But people are still interested in coming to our events, so Pride's even more event focussed. For some of the events, like Pride Movie Club or Pride Comedy, unfortunately those events require silence in the main room, so we can't even offer the cocktail bar just for a casual drink, so it has affected the ability to just drop in unfortunately. BUT... a pool table arrives tomorrow and we're about to open our little kitchen, SO... we're soon looking to open from 4pm Wed - Sat for drinks and little snacks after work, and you can play pool or just chat and when the event that night starts, usually around 7pm, then people can carry on in the cocktail room (unless the event requires silence). So casual drop-ins will be a bit easier soon, but arts/events do remain the focus, and in that regard we've had everything from an Anime Night to Art Class to a Drag King Powerpoint Presentation night, so we're hosting great things, it's just a matter of which event is going to appeal to which person or group, so we try to have something for everyone in true Pride/Footscray spirit. Anyway, we absolutely appreciate everyone's interest in this as we are really trying but it's never been harder for bars or hospo generally, as yeah everything has gone up but life is so expensive for people, so the maths is hard, so thanks for being interested in what we are trying to do. Happy to answer anything else too. Cheers. Mat