what a fine thread, a good read from start to finish !
I love the list of pubs cheese and bad boy bubba have come up with, they are what pubs are all about, I agree that northies is certainly NOT what a good pub is all about. The Rose on Cleveland street darlington is a good one worth visiting too cheese, although I'm sure you're probably sampled it's fare before. Some examples of finely designed, customer focused pubs that have great menus, great service and atmosphere /design IMO are :-
The Harrington hotel-Harrington
The Commercial Hotel-Bellingen
The Star Hotel-Macksville
The Oxford Hotel-bathurst
The Dudley Hotel-Bathurst
The Marlin Hotel-Ulladulla
The Normanby-Brisbane
The Seaview-Townsville
The Surf Club at SALT- Kingscliff
The Tudor-Redfern
The William Wallace-Balmain
The Royal Hotel-Leichhardt
The Golden Barley-St Peters/marrickville
The Hippo Lounge/bar- surry hills-central station
The Glenmore Hotel-The Rocks
The Lord Nelson Hotel-The rocks
The Palisade Hotel-the rocks
The Courthouse Hotel-Post Douglas
The Aussie-Ballina
The Bulladelah Hotel-bulladelah
The Lennox Point Hotel- Lennox Heads
I've spent alot of time over the past 5 years through business at many of those pubs and they all mantain the essence of what is a good pub IMO, there is a pretty wide range of styles and "class" of pubs there in many peoples eyes i guess however I know most of the operators and each of them mantains good classic pub style hospitality as part of their over all plan.
Some joints that I am ANTI for their set up, or for losing the way about what what good about them in the past :-
Northies- Can't see what all the hype is about
Fishos -gold coast- what a sh*t hole, likewise cannot see what the fuss is about, full of wanker groups of yobs in gold coast issue cheap surf gear, service is not existant.
The Clock Hotel Surry hills- what a blowfly magnet. sh*thole.
The whitehorse Surry hills- what a sh*thole, used to be a damn fine pub until the renovation
The Empire-kings cross- Bwwahahahaha ! why would you bother ? sh*thole
The Harbour View Hotel-The rocks- nice idea, they just dropped the ball in execution. Great location though
Coogee bay Hotel- big f*ckin place, big f*cking let down, sh*thole
Watsons bay Hotel- attitude has ruined the joint