Located right in the heart of the city in the Northbourne Avenue/Sydney Building position that was formerly occupied by Mezcal’s (and 5th Avenue before that), ChiChiz is a labour-of-love for friends Anastasia Tyler, Travis Moore and Oliver McLean.
Anastasia explains that the story of ChiChiz is in fact the story of Travis and a bar of the same name in New York, which closed in 2010.
“Travis moved to New York from Maryland when he was quite young and was a bit overwhelmed. In a big city like that, you probably just become invisible. He found ChiChiz and it became a sanctuary, a place where he found his tribe, where he felt safe and supported and so he wanted to create that same kind of space for others,” she says.
Oliver, a Goulburn-native, met Travis when he was working in New York City and they fell in love. Travis made the unlikely move to Canberra with Oliver and the couple met Anastasia in 2022 through a mutual friend. She had moved to the capital from Brisbane following a break up.
“Travis and Ollie had been on the hunt for a good space for a couple of years and it just happened,” says Anastasia.” I have always wanted to have a bar and a nightclub and we got talking and the next thing you know, it was ‘Let’s do it!’. So I guess we’ve been on this journey, the three of us, for 10 months, getting close to a year.”
I met Anastasia at ChiChiz a week before its opening and amid the dust, the Bunnings tubs and the work tools, a vision clearly emerges of an upscale New York dive bar. The point of dive bars is that they are “not pretentious, not precious,” says Anastasia.
‘ChiChiz’ is painted in hot neon magenta inside the entrance and local artist Edward Mowat has painted Cher and Dolly Parton murals on the wall next to the bar, where a flight of stairs leads upstairs.
A piano has been placed in the middle of the room (for now) and there’s a spot for the DJ at the back overlooking the dancefloor. The combined capacity for both levels is 150.
While Anastasia describes the timing of the opening, which happens in the same month that Cube closes, as “divine intervention”, she says that “the queens have been coming out of the woodwork” with a huge amount of people wanting to be involved as staff, performers or event organisers.
With the opening hours of 4pm-late, six days a week (it’s closed Mondays), there will be plenty of opportunities for the various segments of Canberra’s LGBTIQA+ community to gather, from DJ-focused nights to burlesque and drag bingo. Sundays are likely to take on a more chilled, piano-bar vibe with limited cocktails including a New York sour Manhattan and a few other favorites and ChiChiz will be using local distillery Unicorn Spirits’ ‘Fuck Boy Tears’. Entry will be free except when there’s a special event on.
While the upstairs level, featuring booth seating and overlooking both the main bar and Verity Lane, won’t be ready by the opening, Anastasia says: “We’re going to be putting in games and a TV for Xbox and things like that,” she says. “It’s a good space for workshops, artist talks, life drawing, all sorts of things.” It can also be hired as a function space for private events.
Get ready Canberra, your time starts (again) now!
ChiChiz throws open its doors to the public on Friday 19 December. Get all the details at chichizbar.com.au, Facebook and instagram
