The food was fine. The drinks are fine. The service was real bad. Everyone had an attitude and felt like they were doing us a favor just for them literally doing job. The ambiance is fine, and pretty typical of pubs. We couldn't hear anyone at our table because the table next to us was so loud that's all we could hear. It wasn't even a juicy conversation they were having otherwise I wouldn't have cared. When they left it felt like the place was empty but it wasn't, just one large loud table who we could still hear as they walked down the street. It's a fun place though I guess. read more

I discovered that the back streets of Fitzroy can become really confusing at times. Despite wanting to come to this pub I usually, without fail, always ended up at the Napier and wondered why I couldn't find the rooftop deck. Well, it turned out that this was the pub that I was looking for (damn Jedi mind-tricks). Anyway, I really like this pub. It's not hugely crowded and has a number of rooms where you are set yourself up, including this really cool lounge area under the stairs. They also have a pretty cool rooftop deck, though it doesn't afford the views that some other decks offer. It is quite relaxed and I probably should come here more often than I do, but it is a little out of my way (not that that is really an excuse). read more

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There is something so warm and comfortable about the Union. When you walk in you're almost surprised that the Cheers theme song isn't playing and Ted Danson isn't behind the bar - it really has that welcoming, local feel about it. I popped in for a few sneaky pints before Ramen the other night and was lucky enough to snag a seat beside the fireplace. (Side note: is there anything more satisfying than unwrapping all your layers in the middle of winter and slopping down beside the fire?) The menu is traditional pub fare and the beers on tap are as you would expect, with the fun addition of Melbourne Bitter draught (it's not great, but damn is it refreshing). The Union is the perfect alternative for a quiet afternoon drink in Collingwood/Fitzroy if you can't be bothered with the hipster hustle and bustle of the Grace Darling. read more

The Union Club Hotel would be up there for the award of the "most Aussie pub out" but it is somehow difficult to describe exactly what this means. For a start, they serve good honest pub food. In terms of where it fits in compared with other local pubs it probably is not as good as the Napier or the Standard but slightly more upmarket than the Rose Hotel. I went for the salt and pepper calamari with lime aoili. It was tasty and moreish without being spectacular. The place itself has a really homely feel. It was pretty busy and we sat in the front room dining area. The decor was a bit like a time warp, the artwork and cosiness was more like your great Aunt Mavis' front room than a hip Fitzroy hangout. Nevertheless, there was a certain charm about it. The beer garden courtyard area was really buzzing and it would no doubt be a really cool spot to have a night drinking with friends. It's definitely a drinking pub just as much as an eating pub. I'll be back soon. read more

Union Club Hotel - Bars Near Me - Fitzroy, VIC

Visited here on a Saturday night for drinks and dinner. Very, Very busy and loud. Beers were good and cold. Food was a bit the same.

Great food! I ordered the kangaroo, so good. We went with our two children for dinner and it was great for them too. The kids meals are pretty large, which is good if you have kids that eat, ours don't, but their food was done well too. The drink menu was good, my wife and I only had beer and wine though. My wife wanted to go here because of the Offspring tv show, it was cool to be there, but it really felt like a good neighborhood bar/restaurant where you could easily become a "local". read more

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I went here with a friend, after finding out it is the pub from the tv show, Offspring, so already my expectations were a bit skewed. This place is just a fair-dinkum pub and would make a fantastic local. I didn't feel like it had much to offer visitors though. read more

Really cool spot that surprised me and turned out to be better and different than I anticipated. Met some friends here for drinks/food. There's a couple of union hotels around town, which I haven't really liked, and from the pics it just seemed like a standard, over-priced type pub. But visiting, the vibe/atmosphere is especially friendly and young-ish when you first step in, with good indie-type music (Tame Impala, Libertines etc) playing at a low volume over the speakers. It felt super comfy and the bar staff were also really friendly. However I was surprised when I realised how big the place actually is, it extends well out back into a big beer garden covered in cool graffiti and plants, and then has another rooftop with the same vibe. There's also street seating, and inside a pool table etc. We chilled in the beer garden, and ordered food and drinks for a few hours. It's pub food, but cooked quite lightly and yummy. I had the calamari w/ chips + greek salad ($20), and it was a big plate that was really good. Really good time overall, better than your average pub. And I'd totally return (not sure I'd say that about many other pubs). read more

This was the first bar I hit in Australia, which means it was the first place I got smashed. Pool Adult beverages Neat decor/atmosphere... Wish I could remember more, but booze and jet lag don't mix! read more

Yes Melbourne, yes, I like your gastropub style. I don't quite know how I went eight months in Melbourne without patronising Fitzroy's much loved Union Club Hotel but there you have it, I did. The scandal. That was until I visited The Union Club Hotel for a post meal tipple on Friday and caught so many glimpses of other people's frankly awesome looking food that I wished I'd been at the Union all night. Apologies to The Horn but if there's one thing that gives me the horn - culinarily speaking - it's awesome pub grub. Hidden on the backstreets of residential Fitzroy, The Union Club Hotel houses a restaurant, bar, beer garden, pool tables, an open fire and enough screens to satisfy Melbourne's many ardent sports fanatics. I opted for a glass of wine in the Union's cute outdoor courtyard replete with just about the most beautiful fig tree I've ever seen and plenty of outdoor seating. Busy, buzzing and one of the most characterful pubs I've been to in Melbourne, next time I find myself ravenous in Fitzroy I'm making a beeline for The Union Club Hotel. read more

One of my and my Fitzroy-based friends' go-to bars, the Union Hotel can always be counted on. It's a year-round mainstay pub, exactly the low-key place you go to again and again. In the winter, it's cosy and there's a fireplace; in the summer, you can head to the covered beer garden area. The only reason I'm giving it three instead of four stars is because of the food. Their offerings, from burgers (versions including a chickpea one) to parma, could benefit from a bit of a refresher. It would be nice to have a gargantuan salad in the mix, or just some more flavourful condiments. But you're not going to the Union just for its food -- you can go to the Napier Hotel, just over the road, for that. You're going because it's such a cool place. It's also, need I remark, home of 'Offspring''s Jimmy's pub in the Melbourne-based show, something I think needs to be made more of a mention of. This pub is on tv, y'all!!! But even if you don't love the show, you'll enjoy this classic Fitzroy backstreet denizen. read more

Cool staff. Check. Cool patrons. Check. Cool menu. Check. Cool backyard. Check. Back in the days when I wanted to be a rock star this was one of my favourite pubs. In fact this place is just so innately cool they don't need to have live music, specials on their menu or pockie machines to get people in the door. They just have the coolest backyard north side of the river and all the Fitzroy hipster patron's you could ever wish for. In fact so much so I am pretty sure a large proportion of the national gingham cloth shirts and suede shoe imports populate the bar of the Union at any given time. I also particularly like the fact that they have a 'bar snacks' section to their menu which consists of salty, yummy deep fried food for about $10. And these aren't just peanuts and chips. I am talking about deep fried olives stuffed with pork and beef, and salt and pepper calamari bowl with tequila lime aioli. And you know what? Who am I kidding, I still have dreams of being a rock star and I still love this place! read more

Just a great inner-city 'back-streets' pub. Beer garden always has a great vibrancy to it, and inside is spacious with a few rooms to explore and stretch out in. Can't speak for the food, as kitchen was closed when we felt like a late night snack, but the staff let us smuggle some outside food into the tucked away small "private" dining room, which was super nice of them. Another addition to the growing list of places I wished were my actual local (but still feel like it). read more

A great pub tucked away amongst the residential streets of Fitzroy. It has a comfortable, cosy, worn in feel. It's quite popular with the locals and can get really packed. There's a nice beer garden, a dining room at the back with a private room, and an open fire in the lounge area in the front, complete with pool table. The menu consists of big, hearty pub grub and a few fancier options. All in all you can't go wrong with the bangers and mash and the parma, though on my last visit it seemed to have shrunk a tad in size. read more

Union Club Hotel - Bars Near Me - Fitzroy, VIC

Up until recently I would've said this is the best non venue pub in town. There's a lot to like... The decor in the Union has stacks of that old pub style and charm. There are booths along one wall, large dining areas, a double-sided bar (!), two outdoor areas, a large lounge bar with a pool table and old-school toilets. What's best about the place is that they play decent tunes (rock based) and they serve a great range of booze with very little attitude and generally a bit of a smile. The food here is awesome! They have regular rotations of great specials and some of the best pub standards in town. Why it's not as good as it used to be is that there's been a noticeable shift in clientele of late and this fuckin' poseurish, middle-class crowd has moved in. Apparently the pub was featured on some Australian drama recently, so that may have something to do with it. This place was a great pub (it actually still is) but if these inner city private school twats get the run of the joint, it'll become just another Friday night meat market. And there's already too many of those in the area. read more

Very Solid, looks dingy during the day from the outside but when you go in at night there is a beautiful beer garden out the back and the deck on the roof is a great for smokers and big groups. read more

Don't let the look from the outside fool you. Great menu, both food and drinks.

Great place for a quick easy meal with a friend or by yourself. Walking distance, staff are nice and there is never a wait here to grab a table unless its late. All around good filling quality food! Chicken Parma with chips and a pint are my favourite from here! read more

Some of the staff here bring to mind that old Bang! Bang! AIDS! song, "I'm sorry, I didn't know that being a 27-year-old part time bartender made you the coolest motherf***er in town". Yeah, they were not a band known for their subtext. Anyway, I hate to tar everyone with the same brush, there are also a lot of genuinely nice people that seem to work here, and service is not even usually the sort of thing I care most about. But I do reserve my right to be a trifle put out when my first interaction with someone after finishing a tedious 10 hours of work and in dire need of some libational therapy is a lady sulking her way over to me, after interrupting half a minute of dainty Turkish bread eating over by the cash register - while I waited in polite silence glancing around the bar at nothing in particular, mind - and forgoing the chance to greet me or smile or indeed doing anything to outwardly signal that we were about to engage in an act of commerce, instead silently chewing the rest of her triangle bread slice for a few crucial seconds before swallowing and then leaving her mouth slightly agape, staring at me with her dead eyes all the while. I did feel it incumbent upon myself to check my reflection in the mirror, and there was no bird droppings on my shoulder or giant globules of snot hanging out of my nose, so if I did offend her on an aesthetic level, it wasn't because of any misplaced excreta or foreign fluids on my part. Oh wait, silly me, sometimes I forget some people take their Fitzroy very seriously. Clearly her nostrils caught a whiff of Coburg's plebeian stink on me, and I was at fault for believing that outdated concepts like "politeness" and "decorum" applied in this fresh, new, exciting, fashion forward, underground, very rare neighbourhood. Disregard the above! Everything else is good. Good food and nice sundeck, along with an interior surely destined to be used for interior shots on every Claudia Karvan vanity project from now until the Rapture. read more

Haven't been to the Union in a decade or so and had a hankering for some pub grub, being my birthday I favoured something casual & easy. My fiancé & I went there on a Monday night, arriving just before 9pm, it wasn't crowded nor was it abandoned. I imagine that if there's that many folks there early week it could well be quite busy/crowded on weekends. However Mondays are just fine. Chose outside seating which was warm (heaters above) and well covered. Not breezy in the slightest, cosy & comfortable. There was also dining room & rooftop seating. Outside had smoking section and non smoking. Unlike some pubs with kitchen it wasn't excessively loud. Ordered at the kitchen window upon arrival, grabbed our number & cutlery & a couple of bourbons and headed to the beer garden/courtyard. Being cursed with an annoyingly sensitive stomach I appreciated that they offered several decent gluten free options. I chose the kangaroo which was served medium rare with broccoli, macadamias beetroot, mash potato and a lovely dark tangy sauce the name of which escapes me. My fiancé went for the Union Burger. Cost $46 in total. Dishes arrived reasonably fast and the servings were huge (less than half had me well full), Ingredients were fresh and the food was real tasty. I saw several vegetarian options. Staff were good. Given that there was a lot of dining spaces separate from the bar & most spaces smoke free seems it would be fine for kids. Probably not accessible for folks who use wheelchairs unfortunately, except maybe the front tables but phone and ask as I'm not the best to judge. Overall I enjoyed it, would recommend. read more

If it hadn't have been for my 'Nina' infatuation I may never have found the Union Club 18 months ago. I'm glad I did, because while Offspring groupies will no doubt want to visit it's got much more going for it than that. I've eaten here twice now and it hasn't let me down. Visit #1 was the wild mushroom chicken crispy skin grilled breast with chat spuds, aspar & a cream sauce $22 8/10. Tonight was a 300g King Island black angus scotch fillet with mushroom and red wine jus, asparagus & potato gratin $24 7/10. Serving sizes are mighty and won't leave you wanting. This place is about more than the food, it has a cool ambience with a grungy 70s decor, a fireplace, pool table, groovy funky beats and even a pinball out the back. It's homey and you'd be happy to have it as your local. I grappled with whether to give this place 3 or 4 stars and at the end of the day I think the whole package warrants a 4 star rating, will leave here feeling happy and content with my choice. read more