The Argyle is closing: "big plans" for Sydney's heritage nightclub

The Argyle is closing, with Sydney’s most historic nightclub set to make way for a premium restaurant.
Owners Hunter St. Hospitality and Pacific Concepts have put together a massive farewell program.
The final goodbye will be a massive New Year’s Eve party with three stages.
READ MORE: 50+ best nightclubs and bars in Sydney

“Sydney is dead” has become a mindlessly repetitious slogan for cynical ex-partygoers who don’t actually go to nightclubs anymore.

While the city’s night-time economy still has a long path to recovery from the sad sludge of misguided lockout laws, the pandemic and an inescapable cost-of-living crisis, significant efforts have been made to stop the doom and gloom.

But blows are blows. And The Argyle announcing its closure, after 17 years as one of Sydney’s most emblematic nightclubs, is most definitely a blow. But not a setback.

With Sydney’s nightlife becoming stronger each year, The Rocks losing its blockbuster club is sad but hopeful, with owners Hunter St. Hospitality and Pacific Concepts moving away from the blinding lights and pulsating beats towards something more sophisticated (and calmer) for the impressive heritage building.

While the immense sandstone frame still has a few weeks left of partying, it’ll call time out on its buzzy dancefloors in the New Year with “big plans” in sight as the CEO of Hunter St. Hospitality and Pacific Concepts makes a play for high-end dining.

“We looked at where The Argyle was sitting, and the demand from the consumer, and it was starting to wane,” Tucker told The Daily Telegraph.

“[But] we want to leave on a high.”

The newly reenergised hospitality group, which recently reopened long-standing steakhouse The Cut Bar & Grill, has put together a “mammoth” goodbye for The Argyle, scheduled as a series of big-ticket parties starting this weekend with a night curated by DJ Havana Brown, and ending with a massive New Year’s Eve blowout with three stages.

The New Year’s Eve party at The Argyle will feature Timomatic and William Singe on the RNB Superclub Stage, textures of EDM coupled with cannons, lasers, strobes and dancers on the Main Stage, led by Frankie Romano, and house and techno buried in the Rave Cave with local DJ Carisen. As far as NYE parties in Sydney go, this will be one of the hottest tickets in town.

Once 2025 hits, plans will begin to turn The Argyle into a 300-seat restaurant, pitched as “up market but approachable” as a major play to help modernise The Rocks’ dining scene, and assumedly to speak to the constant flow of foot traffic that has made The Rocks once of Sydney’s most visited areas.

“I don’t think Sydney’s nightlife is dead. What people want from night-life is changing,” says Tucker, who is reportedly still finalising the menu and concept for The Argyle’s new form.

Yet the changes have been met with criticism from locals, many whom have spent their formative years at The Argyle.

“First it was Marquee, now Argyle. Sydney’s nightlife is slowly but surely dying,” one person wrote.

But again, that furrowed sense of cynicism for a rapidly growing city is missing the forest for the trees.