Oliver’s Music Bar
9 Nevada Street
You get the feeling that anything could happen in Oliver’s – and quite frequently does. This blink-and-you’ll-miss-it underground watering hole opposite Greenwich Theatre is best known amongst locals as a live music venue but it’s also an inviting, familiar bar with a lot of charisma and in my book, definitely worth a visit.
Descending the stairs into the cellar you arrive straight into the bar – you’ve already passed the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it ‘beer garden’ cunningly masquerading as a smoker’s lone picnic bench on the pavement outside. Snazzy this place is not, it’s pretty worn (but clean) and the walls painted a dull red that makes it seem smaller than it is. It’s also decidedly anti open-plan, preferring to remain as separate rooms that all have a distinct cubby feel. In fact it’s much like being in someone’s home – not in the fake quaint way that many pubs do by having frilly armchairs and painted plates, like some overgrown recreation of ‘The Borrowers’ – but more like someone just had a spare cellar that they had no use for, so they stuck a piano in it, got a few bottles of Newcastle Brown in, and called it a music bar.
Olivier the friendly proprietor mans the makeshift bar in keeping with the at-home feel. There’s nothing on tap but a fairly wide selection of bottles nonetheless, all under a somewhat questionable pricing arrangement: our two identical rounds cost different amounts, but then both amounts were reasonable so it was easy enough to laugh off.
There was a comedy night in progress in the main sitting area so we tentatively crept into the back row to check it out, trying to be inconspicuous – we failed, of course and were promptly named and shamed by the comedian who made us move to the front row. But we weren’t alone – over the course of the evening the spectators all became part of the weird comedy family, a no doubt unexpected turn for all concerned, but everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves anyway. In a further twist some mildly annoying heckling looked set to cause a mass riot at one point, but it all got settled very quickly by Olivier and a prudently placed piece of duct tape.
It’s hard to compare Oliver’s to anywhere else in Greenwich because it is completely unique, but therein lies its charm. We went expecting a quiet Monday night drink and we ended up gaining a few comedian friends and a few heckling mortal enemies, which you sense is all par for the course here. My advice is to go along and see where the evening takes you – from what I’ve seen it’s likely to be somewhere good.