Kalgoorlie was built on gold and beer, and a hundred and thirty years later the pubs are still the centre of the town's social life. Most are heritage buildings from the 1900-1910 boom. A few do food properly, a few do live music, a few are still locals' pubs in the proper sense. Here is the honest rundown.
The Hannan Street four
On Hannan Street between the Town Hall and Maritana Street, four old pubs sit close enough that you can do all of them in an evening if you pace yourself. The buildings are 1900-1905. The verandahs are original. None of them is a tourist trap, all of them get locals as well as out-of-towners.
The Exchange Hotel
135 Hannan Street. The corner pub at the main intersection. Two-storey, wraparound verandah, the building you photograph first when you walk Hannan Street. Big front bar with a long counter, a beer garden out the back, a more formal dining room in another wing. They keep food going till nine most nights, later on Fridays.
Best for: the verandah upstairs for a sunset beer over the wide street, a steak sandwich done well, watching the world walk by. The bar runs schoonies of Hahn at the going Kalgoorlie rate (assume eight to ten dollars depending on what is on tap). The downstairs front bar has a couple of pool tables and skimpies on some nights. The upstairs verandah is the safer bet for visitors and couples; quieter, prettier, better view.
The Palace Hotel
137 Hannan Street, next door to the Exchange. The Palace is the grand one. Big balconies on two levels, a fancy main bar, a hotel above with the original Goatcher hand-painted staircase in the foyer. Worth poking your head into the foyer just to look at the staircase whether you drink there or not.
Best for: a quiet bar drink before dinner, the balcony, anyone who likes their pubs more on the grand side than the rowdy side. The dining room does an alright menu and they take bookings.
Kalgoorlie Hotel
319 Hannan Street, further up. Less famous, less photographed, more of a meal-and-a-beer pub for locals. Good lunch specials, big beer garden with a kids' play area, ribs and steaks done properly. Worth the walk up Hannan if you want a quieter pub for a meal.
Paddy's
135 Hannan Street, in the same building complex as the Exchange. Used to be called Paddy's Ale House, rebranded as Paddys Eat & Drink. Irish-pub feel without being a parody. Solid food. Loud on Friday nights. Good schnitzel, decent jalapeño poppers, the menu is more varied than most pubs on the strip.
Boulder pubs
Drive ten minutes south to Boulder and you get a different scene. Less polished, more locals, cheaper schoonies, better roasts.
The Recreation Hotel (the Reccy)
140 Burt Street, Boulder. The Rec is the pub locals send out-of-towners to when they want to show off Boulder. Proper Sunday roast, big servings, friendly bar, kids welcome till seven. Beer garden out the back. The kitchen turns out wood-fired pizzas that are surprisingly good.
Cornwall Hotel
25 Hopkins Street, South Boulder. Smaller, older, more locals. The Tuesday roast is the local rumour, the kind of meal that is twice the size of the plate and costs less than thirty bucks. Worth the drive in. Walking distance from Burt Street if you parked there.
Boulder Block
The streetscape on Burt Street near Brookman Street is one of the best preserved 1900s pub-and-shopfront strips in Western Australia. Walk it after a Reccy lunch. Most of the buildings have plaques. The Boulder Town Hall and the original Loopline station are at one end.
The other ones around town
A few more worth a mention.
The Tower Hotel. Hannan Street, southern end. A solid local with a big front bar and a decent steak menu. Cheap schooners on Wednesday.
The York Hotel. Hannan Street, around 259. Heritage building, accommodation upstairs, decent meals downstairs. Less rowdy than most.
The Plaza Hotel Kalgoorlie. 45 Egan Street. Used to be the Albion. Hotel with a bistro and a function room, more business clientele.
The Federal Hotel. Corner of Hannan and Maritana. Beautiful 1903 building. Has had a few owners and reopenings; check it is trading before you turn up.
Drinks and prices
A schooner of Hahn Super Dry or XXXX Gold runs you about eight to ten dollars in most Hannan Street pubs. Boulder pubs are usually a dollar or two cheaper. Imported beers and craft taps add three or four bucks. A bottle of mid-shelf wine with a meal is fifty-five to seventy in a dining room, less at the bar. Spirits with a mixer are sixteen-ish.
Specials are common. Wednesday is often steak night somewhere. Sunday roasts run from about thirty-five at the Reccy. Friday afternoon is happy hour at a few places (Exchange and Paddy's both have one). Worth asking the bar staff what's on; specials change.
Drinking culture
Kalgoorlie pubs are easygoing. Walk in dressed for the day. No-one cares if you are in steel-cap boots straight from a shift or in a jumper and jeans straight off the highway. Order at the bar in most places (table service in the dining rooms only). Pay as you go in the front bars, run a tab in the dining rooms if you want.
Tipping is not a thing. If the food was outstanding, leave a few coins for the kitchen. Otherwise pay the bill.
Shouting (buying a round for your group) is normal. If someone shouts you, you shout back at the next round. Forgetting your turn is the worst social sin in a Kalgoorlie front bar.
Drink with the locals if they invite you. Most are friendly to people who can hold a conversation about something other than the price of a house. Mining, footy, the weather, the Pit, road trips, fishing somewhere on the coast, all safe ground.
Skimpies
A specific local tradition that visitors ask about. Skimpies are topless or near-topless barmaids in some of the older front bars. The tradition goes back to the gold rush and it is one of the few places in Australia where it still operates legally and openly.
It is controversial. Many locals avoid the front bars where it happens. Many others see it as harmless local culture. Visitors often want to look without participating, which the staff and patrons both find awkward. Our honest advice: if you are not going to drink, sit, tip and act normally, give the front bars a miss and stay on the verandahs and in the dining rooms where the experience is the same as any pub in the country.
The Exchange, Paddy's and Kalgoorlie Hotel have skimpies on some nights. The Palace, Rec, Cornwall, and most dining rooms do not. Easy to avoid if you would rather.
Food in pubs
Pub food in Kalgoorlie is solidly above-average. The standard menu is steak, schnitzel, parmi, fish and chips, ribs, salt and pepper squid, a few salads. Servings are big. The steaks are usually MSA grass-fed from the eastern wheat belt, occasionally feedlot, generally good.
Highlights:
- The Reccy in Boulder for a Sunday roast.
- Exchange for a steak sandwich on the verandah.
- Paddy's for a schnitzel and a beer-on-tap variety.
- Kalgoorlie Hotel for the meat plate to share if you are a group of four.
- Cornwall for Tuesday roast and Tuesday roast only.
Live music and entertainment
Friday and Saturday nights some pubs have live music. The line-up changes; check pub Facebook pages or the Goldfields Express community calendar. The Goldfields Arts Centre hosts touring shows. Kalgoorlie Race Round in September is the busiest pub week of the year; book accommodation early. Diggers Week in August is the busiest period overall, when most of the front bars are packed with mining people from Perth and overseas.
A short evening crawl for visitors
Some pub history worth knowing
If you are going to drink in Kalgoorlie pubs you may as well know what you are sitting in. Most of the heritage buildings on Hannan and Burt Streets went up between 1899 and 1908, the boom years when gold was flowing, the railway from Perth had arrived, and the town had money to spend on grand architecture.
The Exchange was originally built in 1900 as a much simpler hotel, expanded into its current two-storey form by 1903. The Palace, opened in 1897 and rebuilt in 1903, was the grandest hotel in WA outside of Perth at the time and was where the social elite of the goldfields stayed when they passed through. The Federal, on the corner of Maritana, was built in 1903 and survives almost completely unaltered externally.
Boulder Town Hall, completed in 1908, is across the road from the Reccy and the Cornwall is half a kilometre further on. Boulder's wider main street, like Kalgoorlie's, was laid out for camel and bullock teams, not cars; the photographs from 1905 show it busier than it has been at any time since.
One question visitors often ask
Are Kalgoorlie pubs safe? Yes. The town has the ordinary issues of any country town with a high-income transient mining population, but the pubs themselves are well-run, well-lit, well-staffed, and pleasant to drink in. Stay out of arguments with strangers, do not flash cash around, walk back to your accommodation in a sensible group at night, and you will have no problems.
The pubs are also genuinely welcoming. Locals do still chat with visitors. Bar staff are interested in where you are from. Country pub culture, where being friendly to the person next to you is the default, is properly alive here. It is one of the better things about the place.