The Ed Castle Cranker pop-up is open for business
The Cranker has officially moved into the Ed Castle, adding “traditional British gastropub” food to its offering alongside a strong commitment to live music for the west end site.
Like the 172-year-old east end pub, the Crown & Anchor, the Edinburgh Castle still has the bones of the original pub, which is over 180 years old.
“Like all old buildings, it’s certainly got its nuances. But this one seems to be in pretty good nick,” Tom Skipper, managing director of the Crown & Anchor Pty Ltd., says as we sit on bar stools inside the newly restored pub that they moved into earlier this week.
“When we came in, we basically gave it a fresh lick of paint. Obviously re-stained the timber and tried to bring it back to look like a traditional old, English pub, as opposed to something bright, new and shiny, because it just wouldn’t have fitted the bill with the Cranker.”
In August last year, after proposed plans to build a student accommodation tower on top of the Cranker site, the state government introduced “special-purpose legislation to secure the long-term future of the Crown & Anchor Hotel as a live music venue and provide ongoing protection for key live music pubs in the City of Adelaide against noise complaints from future residents”.
The final list of Designated Live Music Venues is yet to be released.
But it meant that the Cranker’s neighbouring venues Roxie’s and Chateau Apollo were demolished so Singaporean developer Wee Hur could begin building a student accommodation tower of up to 29 storeys on the site.
The Cranker has now relocated to the Ed Castle site in the interim for a two-year pop-up, with plans to return to the east end Cranker site when the construction work is complete.
“Certainly, my preference and my goal is to get back to the Crown & Anchor as soon as possible,” Tom says.
“That looks like it’s going to be July 2027 and we’re holding fingers crossed for that. And if we can get back in July 2027 then I’ll definitely be entering back into that property as a priority.”
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Tom says if the Ed Castle is “still going well”, then they can “apply for the hotel license and have this running concurrently, and we can have music in the west and music down in the east end”.
“We’ve got a pretty flexible lease term here, which allows us to exit out after the two years without having to make a further commitment. Or the options are to purchase the freehold of this property and continue on,” Tom says.
This brief opening came after former owners closed the business in 2018 when a 17-storey student apartment block was built behind it.
“Ironically, our neighbours [at The Ed Castle], the student accommodation tower, is Wee Hur, who are building next door to the Cranker,” Tom says.
But Tom’s decision to relocate out west wasn’t his first, as he considered a number of pubs for the Cranker’s two-year pop-up.
“The Producers was probably the preferred option, given this proximity was literally across the road and literally a 100-metre walk [from the east end Cranker site],” Tom says.
“Sadly, though, there was a federal government grant that was actually in place to turn it into a drug and alcohol rehabilitation clinic. So state government, even with their influence, couldn’t actually unwind that process. So that took that off the table.
“And then this one was obviously a good fit…back in pre-2019 it always had a live music aspect to it, so the fit was quite a good one.”
Tom says the Ed Castle is “a very different pub in terms of its presentation and layout” compared to the Cranker.
“The addition of a beer garden has worked extremely well for us,” Tom says.
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“A large band room just means bigger capacities and different bands we can actually approach, particularly touring bands from interstate.
“The addition of a full working kitchen downstairs, as opposed to a standalone restaurant upstairs with Midnight Spaghetti.
“It gives a couple of different layers, and potentially a couple of different levers we can pull in terms of getting more people through the door.
“We’ve got two televisions which, [they’re] probably going [to be] under strict instructions to staff that they probably just only remain on when there’s a sporting event with the volume down potentially.
“But we’ll see how they use it, but they’re certainly not there to be on 24/7.”
Although the food options won’t be available until next Monday, Tom assures us the menu will follow a “traditional, British gastropub” vibe.
“From a vegan perspective, things like jackfruit burger with barbecue jackfruit slaw and fries, and then we’ve got vegan lasagna,” he says.
“Then we got things like lamb gnocchi, Nanjing chicken – which is an Asian style chicken dish – grilled Saganaki out of the wood oven, beef and Guinness pie and then Philly steak sandwich.
“And then we’ll have a bit of classic pub food: you’ll still have fish and chips and your schnitties and stuff like that.”
Tom also says on Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, they’ll host an outdoor sausage sizzle with weather permitting.
As for drinks, they’ve introduced Guinness on tap and brought over the “jug prices” along with the “Cooper’s everyday pricing”. They are “trying to keep as much continuity with the Crown & Anchor” and “play to the strengths”.
“The Crown & Anchor and its loyal followers [have a] beer drinking culture. We’ll have a cool, little, eclectic, small wine list, but we’re not trying to make that the front and centre,” Tom says.
“Food is ancillary to everything that’s going on here in terms of our bands and our Wednesday nights.”
The Ed Castle is located at 233 Currie Street, Adelaide and is open from Monday to Saturday from 12pm until late.
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