Bay Street Pub Tour

When we look down Port Melbourne’s Bay Street today we see it lined with upmarket boutiques, restaurants, cafés and shops. Dotted along either side are also several pubs and hotels from the ‘gastropub’ Pier Hotel to the sports bar style of The Rex and Bay and Bridge. It is almost difficult to think that this street was once the domain of rough dockworkers and seafarers and a pocket of Melbourne’s seedier element. This tour looks at eight of the pubs still operating since their establishment in the mid-1800s, each one containing stories of hardship, murder, crime and, by contrast, community.

Estimated Duration: 1.5 hours

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  The Exchange Hotel

  ‘The six o’clock swill’ was a phrase used to describe the frenetic ‘swilling’ of beer before the hotel’s restricted 6pm …

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  Pier Hotel

  Although not the first hotel built in Port Melbourne (the Marine hotel on Beach Street was the first by a …

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  The Local

  Carl Frederick Julius Seismann, German immigrant, prominent businessman and licensee of the Royal Mail Hotel (now called The Local) led …

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  The Rex

  'Tragic Endings'. So reads the suicide notice of the Victoria Hotel’s licensee, John Doherty, who killed himself upon hearing news …

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  The Rose

  Billy ‘The Texan’ Longley was a member of the Federated Painters and Dockers Union and a leading underworld gang figure …

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  Bay and Bridge Hotel

  One family that lived in and ran the Chequers Inn, now known as the Bay and Bridge Hotel, were the …

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  Prince Alfred Hotel

  The Prince Alfred Hotel was born with a royal connection. It opened the year Queen Victoria’s son, Alfred, visited Sandridge …

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  Mardo's

  At the north end of Bay Street, the current Mardo’s has had many names, the first being the Fountain Inn. …

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