How do you become the friendliest bar in the world? The team behind the Guinness-serving, music-loving neighbourhood pub and newly crowned winner of the Michter’s Art of Hospitality Award reveals all
A lot of bartenders talk a lot about hospitality. For the bartender-owners at Caretaker’s Cottage, it goes further than just talk. Hospitality is deeply embedded in their systems, and in how they approach each guest, every day.
Caretaker’s Cottage opened in the heart of Melbourne in early 2022. Owners Rob Libecans, Matt Stirling and Ryan Noreiks had been looking to open a bar together for years.
“When we first looked at the space, we all looked at each other and said, ‘this is it’,” says Noreiks. “This is the first place we’ve all just had such a strong feeling about. Then Rob turned to me and Matt and said, ‘It’s a pub. It’s got Guinness, it’s got martinis and we play records. They were the three pillars.”
The bar takes its name from its previous life as the residence of the nearby church's caretaker
Caretaker’s Cottage embodies all the characteristics of a traditional pub – the warmth, the welcome and the role they play in the community.
“Pubs are a focal point for locals, right?” Noreiks says. “It’s where people come to celebrate, to commiserate and to catch up.”
Caretaker’s Cottage is so named because it is a 100-year-old, humble brick cottage next to the Wesley Church and care is woven into every element of its unobtrusive construction: the lights, the sound, the timber – everything conveys warmth, a feeling matched by the hospitality on offer.
The team here doesn’t shout their fancy pedigree to the world either, though they’ve all worked at some of the world’s best bars. The space inside is similarly self-deprecating – it can only hold around 50 people – so you’re up close and personal with the bartenders making your drinks behind the bar, which also functions as a DJ booth.
Vinyl records, Guinness and martinis form the bar's three core pillars
Music is one of the defining pillars of the bar, so it’s unsurprising that the setup is lavish with an expensive-looking record player embedded along one side of the bar, with stacks of vinyl set on the back bar beneath two large, warm-sounding, golden speakers.
As for drinks, expect technique-driven cocktails, drawn from a menu that changes every month.
For the first two months, the menu changed every week, before the team settled on a slightly slower cadence. “The process is difficult because time is always against you. As soon as one launches, you push the typewriter to the left and you have to start the whole process again,” Libecans says.
“We now have a team of four working on one menu, and that’s asking a different level of skill. So we bring one new staff member every month into the process to show them how it works, allow them to have some input and also demonstrate all of the back-end and the back of house preparation as well to share the load.”
It’s not just the drinks that change every month – with each new list the bar launches a brand-new menu design to match it.
The bar's menu changes monthly, each relaunched with a new accompanying design
“The one thing that hasn’t changed really is that all the responsibility of design is still on Ryan,” says Libecans. “I think we’re still in awe or shock when we get a new menu every month.”
The menu has also become a way to consistently change people’s perception of the bar, too. “It helps us add personality to the venue. It’s an old place and a small place, but a new menu allows us to shift our personality throughout the entire year,” says Noreiks.
However, the drinks and the menu are the last thing new recruits to the bar learn about – and that’s reflective of the team’s human-centred approach to hospitality.
The team puts significant time into training to ensure that service standards are upheld, knowing that this is what sets them apart in a crowded industry.
Strong customer service is an utmost priority for Rob Libecans, Ryan Noreiks and Matt Stirling (L to R)
“When staff start with us, it could be six months to a year of just working on the floor in every single capacity before they even hit the bar,” Noreiks says, “just because you want to make sure that we drill down on the importance of customer service.”
At the end of the day, what the team wants, and what Caretaker’s Cottage provides, is an ongoing relationship with their guests. That’s why the menu is designed differently every month, with new drinks to keep people coming back to try new things. But it’s also why their signature, super cold martini is always available, and the Guinness will always be on tap. The bar excels at offering a mix of comfort and novelty.
Perhaps that’s best summed up by one of Stirling’s sayings that has become one of Caretaker’s mottos: see you tomorrow.
“People come in and they have a ripper time and you’re mutually acknowledging that you don’t want it to end,” says Stirling. “So as someone’s leaving, you say, ‘see you tomorrow’. They laugh and look at you – and you go, that’s right! You’re coming back tomorrow.”
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The 16th edition of The World’s 50 Best Bars list, sponsored by Perrier, will be announced on Tuesday 22 October 2024.
