Mr Liquor's Dirty Italian Disco

The Tennyson Hotel is a locals-only pub; commercial tap beers, $10 specials, dull purple carpets. Pretty unremarkable. But its drive-through bottle shop is now home to Mr Liquor's Dirty Italian Disco, inspired by old-school American-Italian diners.

At 6pm every day the venue’s roller doors open to 96 seats strewn across the road where cars would usually drive-through. On one side there’s a huge mural of cartoons by tattooist Rick Vaughn, and on the other there’s a chequered dance floor, karaoke, a cocktail bar, a bottle shop curated by Franck Moreau, and a wood-fired oven and grill run by the Pinbone team. You’ll hear ’90s R’n’B, trap and a lot of disco and funk from speakers extracted from Tank Nightclub.

There are two house-made pastas (the opening menu had a pesto-style green ragu over pappardelle, and mini gnocchi with braised lamb and rosemary); four grilled meats (a one-kilogram rib eye finished in the wood-fired oven and a full spatchcock, lemony and buttered up); and a handful of bar snacks, including a classic chicken-liver parfait, wood-fired ciabatta, handmade ‘nduja and four bruschettas.

Before you eat, walk through the remnants of the drive through, now a walk-through wine store, and choose what you’ll be sipping for the night or taking home afterwards. If you’re staying until late, opt for a jug of Negroni or a late-night Sgroppino with lemon sorbet and prosecco.