Paragon Hotel
Editorial
Perhaps it’s the proximity to the Tasman; perhaps it’s the emotional King Tide of the city itself. Whatever the case, the energies of the Paragon seem to ebb and flow by the hour. One never really knows what to expect.
Of course, there are some dependable features. The pub, smack dab in the middle of the Quay, serves up decent food, beer and hospitality. Staff here are as professional and hardened to nonsense as you’d expect in an old waterfront joint, and the meals from the kitchen are well-priced and well-cooked. The beer flows cool and easily through well-maintained lines. The punters, however, are another story.
Sitting, as it does, on the edge of the nation’s best-known body of water, the Paragon attracts all sorts at all times. Certainly, there is a core comprised of regulars but orbiting around them is an irregular and unpredictable mass of tourists, Bucks, Hens and, given the proximity to the Sydney Opera House, theatregoers.
It’s this odd and impulsive beat that informs the Paragon. Some nights, the place can seem like the sort of Singles Bar they host in hell; on others, it seems the sentimental heart-and-soul of the city by the harbour.
And sometimes, it’s just the place you go to down a quick schooner and erase the memory of a night or a day gone wrong.
SM King, January 2010.
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