The night of my buck’s party we were at St Jerome’s. I remember meeting this really cute girl, and although I was really pissed, I found a connection with her and started doubting my marriage. And her name was Peter Barbaro. I never cheated on my wife there, and I’m still married today.
Although girls would have hated the toilets, once they got over the fact they had to bunny hop to have a piss, they would have loved that fact that there were no real sleazes… besides us. And they weren’t going to get in a fight.
It was one of the few places that you could go where people that worked in offices came dressed in suits, and you could go in with thongs and a t-shirt (and probably pissed half the time) but still get away with it. There was never any trouble there. People felt comfortable and there was no conflict. You could drink as much as you could and party as much as you could, and know you were in a safe environment without bouncers on the door pulling you up because you didn’t have a collar. It’s a pretty simple theory really.
— Anon
Bollocks had come from overseas and we caught a taxi to St Jerome’s. For some reason, I got a little irate with the taxi driver. I think greasy kebab fingers had something to do with it, maybe not paying the bill. Our dispute started and Bollocks, who was on a temporary visa, saw what was coming and got out of there. I said, ‘I’m not leaving the cab mate.’ So the taxi driver comes round the passenger side, and I get out and chase him Benny Hill style: He’s chasing me, I’m chasing him. I couldn’t catch him so I kicked his taxi and went down to St Jerome’s with my kebab. The bar was closed, so I started banging on the door yelling to Ben, ‘I’m Jerome’s mate, let me in.’ And he said, ‘everyone’s mates with Jerome, I can’t let you in.’ I threw the kebab at the window, and the cops came and asked me if I was the guy chasing the taxi driver around the car. Handcuffs. Four hours later I get let off.
— Andrew ‘H’ Harvey
I worked at Shit Town, which was like the ugly sister to St Jerome’s right next door — a disused open-air staircase that ran up the side of an abandoned Myer warehouse. Apart from the hundreds of travellers we would get through the bar on weekends, we’d also get groups of suits knocking off with a bevie at the new bar in town. Often I’d cop abuse from office workers who were sickened by the lack of shelter/decor/lighting or the apparent danger to their lives that presented itself on a crowded fire escape in the middle of the night. See how I view it is, there’s hundreds of laneways in Melbourne, and also hundreds of bars, all of which can offer you shelter, lighting, warmth and a glass for your drink. Yet you come down the smelliest fucken laneway in Melbourne, and enter a bar like nothing you’ve ever been to in the world (I know cause you told me) that is called Shit Town for fuck’s sake, and then you have a problem?