Trinity Bar has held the corner of Crown and Devonshire in Surry Hills since 1882, and it still does the job a neighbourhood sports pub is supposed to do. The big screens carry every code, the taps run deep, and the building gained a second life upstairs when the rooftop reopened as Tilly May's.
The address is 505 Crown Street, the southern stretch toward Cleveland, a short walk from Central Station and Prince Alfred Park. Broadsheet Sydney covered the venue when it began a staged makeover, leading with the new upstairs bar, so the ground floor still trades as the unfussy sports room while the roof handles the sunset crowd. A pint of Guinness is always on tap, which suits the Trinity College Dublin nod in the name. For the wider scene, see our guide to Sydney sports bars.
Downstairs is a proper corner pub, with screens placed so most of the room holds a sightline to the main game and a bar that keeps the schooners moving. It is brighter and less polished than the boutique cocktail rooms a few blocks north, and that is the appeal on a Saturday when the football is on and the room is full of locals. The rooftop changes the register entirely, open air and built for a slower afternoon.
What to order: the Guinness is the signature pour, settled properly and worth the wait, while the rotating taps cover a cold lager or pale around eleven to fourteen Australian dollars a schooner. The kitchen runs an affordable traditional pub list, so a parma, a burger or a Sunday roast does the work between codes. A jug and a plate of wings is the standard match day order, and the wood fired pizzas have crept onto more tables since the makeover.
The crowd is Surry Hills locals, after work office workers from the city fringe and a code following crowd that picks its night by the draw. It fills for NRL and AFL finals, Origin, the Premier League and Six Nations weekends, and ticks over through a Friday after work. The mix of a serious sports floor and a rooftop makes it a rare Surry Hills pub that works for a match and a date in the same visit.
Who it is for: the local who wants sport without a trek into the city, the after work crowd chasing a corner table and the group that wants a roof for the back half of the afternoon. Pair it with a wider inner city trail, lining it up with the Marlborough Hotel in Newtown, with more across the Sydney bar guide and the national sports bars index.
Best time to go is a couple of hours before a marquee kickoff, when a downstairs table with a clear screen is still going. A Friday after work lands the office crowd and an early rooftop seat. Avoid arriving at kickoff on a finals night without a plan, because the corner fills fast and Crown Street offers little overflow.
Marcus Webb rates Trinity as the Surry Hills all rounder, the corner pub that still treats live sport as the main event while keeping a rooftop in reserve. The staged refit kept the public bar honest rather than scrubbing the character out of it, which is the hardest balance for an old pub to hold. For a fan who wants a real local rather than a sports barn, it is the cleanest pick on this stretch of Crown Street.
Sources: Trinity Bar official site (trinitybar.com.au); Broadsheet Sydney report on the Tilly May's rooftop makeover; Time Out Sydney venue listing for Trinity Bar.
