Project Team

design: Marcus Motteram and Kyle Bush

Award winning bar operator Marcus Motteram has returned home from  Melbourne where he is still the owner of Chuckle Park, New Guernica and Chuckle Deli just to name a few. After a 15 year hiatus the lure to come back home was strong, especially after Adelaide opened the market with its passing of small bar licences.

“I have lived and breathed the small laneways of Melbourne for 15 years, and I’m so excited to be part of the Adelaide west end revival” he says. “True hospitality is all about being up close and personal with your patrons, welcoming a patron into a space just like you would welcome a friend into your home”.

He took his time finding the perfect location. And this he did, in Gilbert Place. “I wandered the laneways of Adelaide and came across this place” said Motteram. “I rang up, got speaking to the current tenant and asked him what it would take to move out. He said its quite fortuitous timing – I wouldn’t mind selling”. In true “you don’t get unless you ask” fashion, Motteram ended up being the owner of a small catering company, Red Star.

Motteram took it over a year ago, and went about relocating the kitchen to the back of the space to allow for his vision of Hains & Co to grow. Hains is his maternal grandfather’s name, and with this venue he is honouring his forefathers who sailed the seas to be here in Australia, and who opened up Hains Hunkin furniture store on Hindley Street. The bar is nautically inspired with a cheeky sense of fun. Yes, partly nautical in honour of his forefathers, but mostly nautical because Motteram is obsessed with good rum and gin – always a sailors spirit staples.

“The build was a little difficult as the catering company had to function throughout it,” he commented.

He has gone about delicately  sourcing materials for the bar, such as the bar itself which is crafted out of Largs Bay jetty, where his grandfather used to spend much of his childhood. The 1250kg feature anchor was sourced from Captain Brett Devine (true name), and bronzed portholes have been fashioned into the brick walls for visibility into another space. The feel is welcoming, subdued, a place where it wouldn’t matter if you walked through the door in high viz or a top hat, you would always receive the warmest of welcome.

“Being nautically inspired we have been fortunate to find a few wonderful pieces to add to the bar a little integrity. My younger brother put me in touch with Capt. Brett Divine who we got a 1250kg anchor which came off the Rush Cutter (an old navy ship in Sydney) along with a plethora of port holes and other ship paraphernalia.

We also locally sourced lengths of the old Largs Bay jetty to make the bar top and vanity benches in the bathrooms, which is poignant as my ancestors came out on ships and settled in Port Adelaide.”