Thirty Two

History

Address

30-34 Botchergate

Bar 32 from

2018 or earlier

Before that

The Queens

A present-day nightlife bar with no heritage behind it: a modern Botchergate unit, no listing, no scheme link, no older building. The name is the address, and nothing more mysterious than that. Botchergate carries more of this site's venues than any other street in the city, and it runs the whole century: Redfern's Cumberland Inn of 1930 at one end and DJ bars like this at the other.

It was the Queens before, and the paperwork lets you date the change to within a year. The licensing register holds a temporary event notice for the Queens at 30-33 Botchergate covering the August bank holiday weekend of 2017. By 19 July 2018 the same premises appear in the gambling register as Bar 32, with a gaming machine permit and a machine notification served that day, and another in October 2019.

The company came after the name. 32 Entertainment Limited was incorporated in September 2019 and still gives Queens Party Bar, 30-32 Botchergate as its registered address, with David Thompson appointed a director in March 2020 and Benjamin Read in July 2021. A second company at the same address, 32 LHC Limited, has since been dissolved. The bar has traded as Bar 32 and as Thirty Two, and its Facebook page has announced new ownership more than once.

It is bigger than the number suggests. The gambling register puts Bar 32 at 30 to 34 Botchergate, three addresses, and event listings bill Secret at number 34 together with 32 Bar as a single venue of 540 capacity, so the thing behind the door was most likely one operation across the run, not a small bar at a single number. Number 34 has since gone its own way, with a licence of its own, and trades as Footloose.

By 2026 it was advertising itself as a relaunched bar and lounge, open seven days from three in the afternoon, with an open mic night on Wednesdays. That does not match the evening opening recorded here, so the hours want checking. Inside: beer, cocktails, spirits and wine, two pool tables, a jukebox and arcade machines, including a boxing game and a Deal or No Deal cabinet, all of them taking contactless. Regular cocktail deals, and music kept conversational most of the time and turned up for event nights, which is what regulars rate it for.