Five years after launching its luxe gin laboratory and Eileen’s Bar on Crown Street, the multinational-owned brand will make way for a new spirits-based venue.
Four Pillars’ luxury flagship Surry Hills gin lab and bar will close next month, but don’t expect the flow of spirits to pause for long. Paddington’s chilli-hot Mexican-inspired bar, El Primo Sanchez, has snapped up the brand’s soon-to-be-vacant Crown Street digs.
“We’ll relocate there mid-October,” El Primo Sanchez co-owner Vince Lombardo said. Four Pillars’ last day is Friday, September 19, after which gin will take a back seat to Sanchez’ mostly tequila-based cocktail list, which Good Food critic Callan Boys praised, along with its Latin-American bar food, in a 2023 review.
“Sharp, slick and slightly swanky,” Boys wrote in his review. The Four Pillars site Sanchez is poised to occupy is even swankier. The mega gin palace’s 2020 opening saw no expense spared, with eye-catching joinery, Norwegian bar modules and Portuguese cork panels. The crafted light fittings from Eileen’s Bar were deemed so special they were individually named.
The Australian gin brand launched in 2013 by Cameron Mackenzie, Matt Jones and Stuart Gregor was one of the largest independently owned distilleries in Australia before completing its sale to beverage company Lion in 2023. The drinks giant didn’t elaborate on the reasons behind its decision to close the Four Pillars venue and transfer the lease. Lion operates in Australia and New Zealand, and is a subsidiary of Japan-based drinks conglomerate Kirin.
“This is a significant and emotional moment, particularly for the team at the lab, and we’re committed to working closely with them through this transition,” Lion Australia managing director James Brindley said.
Brindley praised the dedication and efforts of the team over the past five years, and the calibre of the incoming operator.
Lombardo said the opportunity to take the site was a business no-brainer with his own lease coming to an end: “There’s so much more foot traffic here than our part of Oxford Street, and it suits our needs.”
A separate street-level Four Pillars spirits shop on Crown Street will become a concept store, tasting room and cocktail studio for the Maybe Sammy Group, which owns Sanchez. “It’ll be the only place where you can buy our entire range of bottle cocktails,” Lombardo said. “There’ll be a bit of merch, and our new Maybe beer.”
Sanchez has even found space to relocate its popular pint-sized karaoke booth. “There’s a [walk-in] safe near the stairs at the bar. It still has the safe door on it. We’ll put the karaoke in there.”
While the team is keen to retain most of the Yasmine Ghoniem-designed space, “Eileen” – the copper German still that punches out small batches of gin and lends its name to the current bar – will go.
“We’re going to take it out and put in a small dance floor. Customers at Sanchez love dancing, so we’ll give them one of those dance floors that lights up.
“It’s a really beautiful space, we won’t be changing it much. The room has the blue we use already, we’ll just add a bit of yellow and orange and some Mexican art.”
The serious business of cocktails will be replicated, with general manger Eduardo Conde set to transplant favourites such as the Horchata Colada and signature highballs and margaritas.
With more room to move, Sanchez will introduce an agave trolley. “It’ll let us do tableside pours,” Lombardo said. And there’ll be a tequila passport, with regulars able to eventually make their way through 100 tequilas.
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