Sports Bar Breathes New Life into Kiama Leagues Club

Named Cedar Cutters due to Kiama’s history as a port with an abundance of cedar that attracted Europeans in the 1820s, the sports bar officially began serving patrons on Friday, 20 October, before hosting an almost full house for the Caufield Cup on Saturday. 

“We had a pretty impressive turnout on Saturday for Caufield Cup Day with about 100 people in the venue all day,” Kiama Leagues Club General Manager Jesse O’Brien said, adding that the charcuterie boards on the new menu were a hit with the large groups. 

“There were a lot of big groups, so the grazing stuff went really well, and while we didn’t sell whole heap of the loaded dogs, those we did received exceptional feedback.” 

The new venue can cater for up to 180 people and boasts 15 screens — including four TV walls — and a full commercial kitchen which will churn out an “up-market sports bar-style” menu, including charcuterie boards, smoked meats and loaded hotdogs. On the beer taps, the Club’s own Cedar Cutters Lager will help keep patrons hydrated. 

The bar was constructed underneath the Club, in an area the board had deemed “dead space” that desperately needed a new lease on life.  

“We were looking at strategic planning moving forward with the Board at the Club, looking how we could grow our footprint somewhat,” Jesse said.  

“We had a bit of space under the Club in two directions, and stage one of the master plan was to essentially relocate the sports bar down there and make it bigger and better, so we could make room to continue developing up on the main level.”  

The Club held a ‘sneak peek’ event at Cedar Cutters a few weeks ago for members and guests to watch the Tim Tszyu fight, with the new venue being met with plenty of positive feedback. 

“I sat down there with a handful of directors towards the entry of the area incognito to just gauge people's responses, and it was overwhelmingly good,” Jesse said. 

The second stage of the Club’s upgrade consists of building a new gaming floor and redoing the front of the venue.

“I'm glad the sports bar is finally open because we're very deep into stage two, which is set to go to tender in the next few weeks,” Jesse said. 

Jesse says he is excited to see Cedar Cutters grow as word of mouth and social media spread the word, with the silly season on the horizon he says it’s the perfect time to build a following.

“You can advertise wherever you want, but I think the word of mouth and people's personal social media posts are going to take this a lot further, in the coming weeks and months than anything we could invest in.”