The Retreat Hotel Brunswick

Not to be confused with the Abbotsford pub of the same name, this Brunswick pub is one of Melbourne’s longest running live-music venues. The front bar’s boxed-in timber stage hosts music seven nights a week, favouring rock, indie, country and all manner of guitar-based acts inbetween. But it’s not unusual to catch curve-balls ranging from Mariachi music to comedy open mic nights.

On the menu, no-frills pub grub meets a short list of tacos, with sides simple sides on offers such as broccolini with confit garlic, or a classic greek you can bolster with chicken. On weekends, you can snag an egg-bacon-roll with a hash brown for around $10.

For the interior’s live-in charm, the beer garden out back is the pub’s main draw, where a decade’s worth of sloshed beer stains the synthetic lawn, and conversations run just shy of the pub’s late licence.