The Redback Tavern

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

The Redback Tavern

If you live in west London, especially if you live with Australians, you will find it very difficult to go too long without stepping foot inside the infamous Redback Tavern. Don’t bother trying to fight it because you will end up there at one point or another and chances are, given enough snakebite consumption, you might even enjoy yourself!

The ‘Reddy’ is open ??? nights a week with Tuesdays and Thursdays being good nights for getting on the piss cheaply. Spirits on Tuesday and Thursday are £1.50 before 9pm and that’s great motivation for getting down to the pub early, grabbing a table and loading it up with drinks to sophisticatedly sip on for the rest of your civilised evening. Or you could grab a few pint glasses, pour your drinks in and spend the night guzzling quadruple pints of Bundy and coke like the alcho that you are. The choice is yours.

Sundays are another great day for a bargain and will give you an excuse to start drinking early, if you need an excuse. During the summer there’s a free BBQ out back on the sandy patio with sausages, hamburgers (that taste suspiciously like toothpaste) and cheap drinks specials that end at 6pm. After that the crowds are ushered inside to the dark confines of the bar, the band kicks off and sweaty bodies dance badly to some scream-a-long rock songs and power on until midnight despite promises that you’d only have a couple drinks and go home when the BBQ ended.

Fridays and Saturdays are also busy nights but without the tempting drink discounts and lure of free food. After any Reddy session it seems to be a requirement to move across the road to Babylon Pizza for some drunken conversations, table dancing, last ditch efforts at hooking up, and some greasy food.

The Reddy is filthy, feral, and loads of fun and if you haven’t had your sandaled feet blackened and a white top stained pink with flying snakebite at this legendary venue then you haven’t truly experienced London, antipodean style.