Last December, Melbourne bid farewell to famed live music venue and night owl rock institution Pony, which was put to pasture after 12 years of servicing 5am debauchery with a closing 24-hour live music marathon.
Thankfully the good stallion was not put down, with news emerging that after extensive renovations the venue would be reborn under the cleverly named Boney with the promise that “live music would continue” at the Lt Collins street hotspot.
New owners Camillo and Daniel Ippoliti (the father-son owners Revolver in Prahran and the CBD’s Cookie and Toff In Town) have now unveiled Boney in all its remade glory, pegged as a new restaurant and bar that will feature live music seven nights a week and retain the all-important early AM live sets.
Owners held a soft launch for the reborn venue this week, with Broadsheet reporting on a glimpse of the interiors which though drastically reworked holds true to the Boney moniker by maintaining much of the original structure of the venue.
“We wanted to keep that rock’n’roll vibe. That’s what Boney’s about,” says Daniel Ippoliti, who has brought on board chef Karen Baston (Cookie, Colonel Tan’s) to head the new downstairs kitchen, which provides the usual beer, wine, and cocktails along with a selection for lunch, dinner (and take-away) that includes “pork belly sausages, steak tartare, jalapeño donuts and range of weekly specials.”
More importantly for live music lovers is the upstairs bandroom, which was “gutted and disinfected” and new bookers Emily Ulman (The Toff In Town, The Post Office Hotel) and Luke Pocock (Bar Open) will ensure that the 265-capacity bandroom will maintain its late-night lustre, promising live music and DJs seven nights a week and keeping Pony’s infamous 2am slots.
“It’s a small venue, unlike Revolver, so we want to take advantage of that and focus on up-and-coming artists,” says Ippoliti, while TheMusic points out that the iconic space has a more open feel to remove bottlenecks and improve sightlines throughout the bandroom.
Boney was originally set to get its music debut back during April’s ANZAC weekend as part of the Hoodoo Gurus invitational Dig It Up! music festival, but the old mare wasn’t quite ready to hit the track just yet. The Ippolitis, who took up the lease to Boney last December, also took the lease for the neighbouring Bridie O’Reilly’s, noting their intentions to renovate the former and continue to operate the two venues as “separate, but complimentary entities.”
Under former lease holders Jon Perring, Andrew Portokallis and Sam Crupi – who also run The Tote, Bar Open, and Yah Yahs – Boney (nee Pony) was one third of Melbourne’s infamous ‘Bermuda Triangle’, the pronged set-up of late night/early morning hotspots along with Cherry Bar in AC/DC Lane and Chinatown’s Ding Dong Lounge.
Boney plans to retain that legacy and will begin its live music in earnest soon enough with Andras Fox (of Fox + Sui) launching his Erskine Falls EP at the venue, with support from Oscar Key Sung, on Saturday 17th August (more info here).
(Photography: Peter Tarasiuk. Source: Broadsheet Melbourne)
