Fun and friendly late-night retreat

Like an old boat bobbing on the waves, late-night venue the Carlton Yacht Club is a relaxed place of escape at a remove from its more hard-surfaced surroundings. The atmospheric venue has been serving up the drinks for
24 years.

Growing up in a Greek Cypriot family, food was important to Andrew Leonedas and he was introduced to alcohol “in a sort of a slow and civilised way” by his father.

After finishing school Andrew had thought he would study fine art or graphic design but turned instead to hospitality.

In 1981 he got himself a job as trainee manager of a city pub and enrolled at William Angliss to study, and he has been in the business ever since, working in cafés, hotels and fine dining restaurants as well as teaching hospitality.

But drinks were his specialty.

Andrew had always been interested in wine and from the late ‘80s, when “people started importing beer and producing craft beers” he “took a real interest”.

“Then the spirit market sort of started to explode, then drinks and cocktails,” he says.

After deciding he was going to start his own business, the Brunswick resident spent a while looking for a venue.

He hadn’t thought about Lygon St until a friend who had a Chinese restaurant there told him one day he was sick of the business.

“He said, ‘take this place off my hands, and open up your bar here’.”

It didn’t take long to transform the former noodle bar into the Carlton Yacht Club – its name chosen for the relaxed environment its owner wanted to create and the inner-city irony – and to fit it out with nautical paraphernalia.

“I did all the work with some friends who chipped in and helped, and we were up and running in two months,” he says.

From the beginning Andrew’s formula was “to keep it simple and cater to everybody, and though it might sound corny, just focus on what the customer wants”.

For three-quarters of the clientele, that is beer, wine and spirits, he says.

The bar stocks a big range of them, doesn’t say no to any requests and tries “to accommodate everybody”.

And while it doesn’t take itself too seriously the bar does take its drinks seriously, its owner says.

For cocktail fans there are new creations twice a year, and hundreds available on request from the back catalogue.

A few favourites from the summer list include the cucumber and mint flavoured Screaming Viking, the raspberry and salted caramel Treacle Tart and the fruit and mint-infused Watermelon Sugar High, while for the coming cooler months, a spiced rum hot toddy with house-made spiced syrup or a dark-spirit-laced Old Fashioned variation with “smoky, peaty Scotch whisky” beckon.

As the only late-night venue on the strip – with a 3am Thursday to Saturday licence and a 1am Sunday to Wednesday closing time – the Yacht Club has attracted local hospitality workers “pretty much from day one”.

They are part of a diverse crowd – from local workers, businesspeople and students to interstate and international visitors, which “gets younger as the night progresses”.

“In Lygon St everything pretty much shuts down around 11 o’clock.”

These days although he is still involved in all aspects, the boss runs the business “from a little bit of a distance,” handing off operations to his “loyal, hardworking” staff.

He says he gets a lot of compliments when he’s out and about from people reporting they had a great night at the bar “because the staff were very friendly”.

“It’s a bit rare to be around for as long as I have, and there's no secret to it, but I don't understand why more bars don't follow the focus of listening to the customer,” he says.

“Fun and customer-friendly is what we’re all about.”

carlton-yachtclub.com •