Still better than North Sydney!
Still better than North Sydney!
Long read, some of our favourite venues appear to be run by utter cunts.
Sex, sleaze and Swillhouse: The sinister side of the glitzy hospitality scene
One of Sydneyâs top bar and restaurant groups allegedly pushed female staff out of the company after reporting sexual assaults and encouraged staff to have sex with patrons and take drugs on duty.
One of Sydneyâs top bar and restaurant groups has been hit with claims it pushed female staff out of the company after reporting sexual assaults, encouraged staff to have sex with customers and take drugs while on shift, and discriminated against women as it built up a hospitality empire that now spans six venues across the city.
Five former female staff say they were sexually assaulted and harassed by other employees across the Swillhouse group, which operates six of Sydneyâs most high-profile venues, including Le Foote in The Rocks, Restaurant Hubert, the Baxter Inn and Caterpillar Club in the CBD.
In response to the allegations raised in a months-long investigation by The Sydney Morning Herald and Good Food, Swillhouse chief executive Anton Forte said the company was aware of sexual assault allegations at its venues and said it âsincerely regretted and apologised to any former employees who felt unsupported and at riskâ.
One former Hubert bartender said she was raped in the restaurant toilets by a fellow staff member last year after she was given a cocktail made with 10 different gins. âI got completely blackout drunk and blacked out and came to with him raping me in the womenâs bathrooms at work,â she said.
The bartender, who asked not to be identified because she is pursuing legal action, reported the incident to NSW Police.
She said she was âdriven to breaking pointâ by the company, which initially offered her counselling but then subjected her to performance reviews. When she asked to move to another venue, Le Foote, she had to take a pay cut and then had her hours reduced after she began suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder while at work.
Internal emails reveal that one manager said her âgeneral negativity within the workplaceâ was ânot in line with our core values of âgood timesâ and âdevoted hospitalityâ.â
A different manager said in an email that her âpersonal situationâ could not be taken into account to give her extra hours, and that âwe only take into consideration restaurant needsâ.
Forte said Swillhouse provided extensive support to the employee including accompanying her to the police station and psychological assistance after she reported the allegation.
âDue to the roster in place at that restaurant, there were some discrepancies in hours, which were rectified upon being brought to our attention,â he said.
Another Hubert bartender said she was sexually assaulted by a colleague at home. She said she was told by her supervisor the next day that it was her fault for drinking and that she was a âsquare peg in a round holeâ.
âThe people that are making money are doing it off our broken bodies,â she said. âThis industry that I have given so much to has completely fâed me over.â
âThey wheel you out on International Womenâs Day, but you are afraid to be feminine,â said another bartender. âIt was established that if you say anything, you are out.â
Forte said Swillhouse had never discriminated against an employee who raised sexual assault allegations.
âAt Swillhouse, sexual assault allegations are handled with the highest level of urgency and care,â he said.
But three former staff members, who requested anonymity to protect their future employment, said the company put them in vulnerable situations as part of a wider culture that fostered a reliance on drinking and drugs for day-to-day work.
âIt was like a cult,â said one bartender.
Supervisors and staff at Hubert would frequently use âthe cinque roomâ to do lines of cocaine during and after shifts, six former bartenders said.
Forte said Swillhouse had a no-drinking and no-drugs policy on shift but did not address claims about regular cocaine use at Hubert. The Parisian bistro in the Sydney CBD has won a Good Food Guide chefâs hat for the past two years.
âThere was previously one staff drink allowed after work,â said Forte. âUnfortunately, this was abused, and the privilege was removed after instances of the policy being breached.â
âPhysical intimidationâ
Down the road at Swillhouseâs whisky bar, The Baxter Inn, bartenders called out âShoesâ or âJimmy Choosâ (rhyming slang for âboobsâ) to alert other staff members when a woman with large breasts walked in.
The bar staff were also allowed to clock off early to have sex with customers, a male bartender said. Occasionally, they took customers to have sex on top of the washing machine in the accessible toilet or in the store room, where expensive whiskys were kept in an old bank vault.
âWe donât deny there have been some instances of juvenile and regrettable behaviour that, in hindsight, should not have occurred,â said Forte.
The bar wall had notes written on a sliding scale of attractiveness, with staff ranking each customer the bartenders had slept with.
One male bartender said the companyâs policies encouraged âlooseâ behaviour. He said little consideration was given to how the behaviour would affect female employees, given there was a âblanket banâ on hiring women in the barâs first years.
âIt was the âhave a beerâ policy,â the former bartender said. âThey would only hire people they thought they would want to have beers with.â
Forte said the original teams at the Baxter Inn, named sixth-best bar in the world in 2015, and Shady Pines Saloon, which opened in 2010, did consist solely of men.
âAt the time, there were fewer female, full-time bartenders and, as such, not many applicants. Swillhouseâs first female bartender was hired in 2012,â he said.
When women were eventually hired at the Baxter Inn in 2014, there were no sanitary bins.
âNo one had ever considered that,â one male bartender said.
Two women left their bartending positions at The Baxter Inn after the company failed to act upon repeated complaints of sexual harassment made against another male colleague between 2019 and 2020, former employees said.
âIt was physical intimidation,â said one of the women.
âThis guy would brush up against us, he would ask us really intimate questions about our sex lives, just out of the blue and during service.â
The sexual harassment continued after meetings with a human resources representative and upper management.
â[My colleague] got to the point where she was terrified to come to work,â she said.
âShe felt completely helpless because they wouldnât give him a warning [and] there were no efforts made to investigate it.â
Forte said the incidents âshould have been better handledâ.
âUnfortunately, the details of the claim provided to senior management were incomplete and inaccurate, so while the bartender was relocated, the matter was not addressed as thoroughly as it should have been,â he said.
âThe Wild Westâ
Swillhouseâs best-known venue, Frankieâs Pizza, was also its most notorious. The barâs merchandise sold its vision: âGet fâed at Frankieâs,â a T-shirt read.
âIt was just the Wild West,â said one bartender.
The dive bar was mourned when it shut down in 2022 with a week-long party dubbed âFrankieâs Pizza goes to hellâ after a decade spent hosting celebrities including Jack Black, Cuba Gooding jnr, and members of the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Rage Against the Machine.
But staff said it bred a misogynistic culture that denigrated women.
âIâd be taken out of the main bar there and put into the pizzeria because women didnât know anything about beer,â said one former bartender.
When women were allowed to work at the bar, they were shown violent pornography by managers. âYouâd love that,â the bartender said she was told.
Forte said the company had never received complaints about videos being taken of people having sex.
âWe can confirm that while we want our employees to be positive and engage with our customers to give them a great experience, they have never been encouraged to have sex with customers,â he said.
One acronym was frequently plastered around the venue and on its promotional material: STC. âSuck the Câkâ.
On social media, Frankieâs often pushed a hypermasculine, rock ânâ roll image to its customers. In one Facebook post, it âpromised minimal predatory behaviourâ from one of its performers who was pictured holding up a packet of âWipe on Sex Appealâ.
Behind the bar, cocktails were made from a book known by the homophobic slur staff used to refer to it: âThe faggot book of recipesâ.
Forte acknowledged the terms were used at his venues, describing them now âas offensive, derogatory and juvenileâ.
âWe regret not stamping them out sooner than circa 2016 when we believe they were last used,â he said. âWe acknowledge these examples are indicative of wider cultural issues we had at the time and have since been working to rectify these harmful behaviours.â
âWe could have done betterâ
Inside Swillhouseâs first bar, the Nashville-style Shady Pines Saloon in Darlinghurst, one bartender said a male co-worker sexually assaulted her.
The bartender filed a report to the Child Abuse and Sex Crimes Squad of the State Crime Command in 2022.
â[My co-worker] was encouraging everyone to drink and then gave most of the other staff MDMA [ecstasy] to take while working,â the bartender wrote to police.
âHe then started asking me what kind of underwear I was wearing that night. I refused to answer and attempted to ignore him as I kept serving. Then he started groping my ass before shoving his hand in the back of my shorts from the leg and inserting his fingers inside me.â
Swillhouse fired the male co-worker, but the bartender said he was repeatedly allowed back into the venue to drink despite being sacked. Forte said he did not believe the co-worker had returned to the venue, and if he did, the company was not aware of it.
âEvery job Iâve had since then, Iâve had someone say, âYou know, itâs okay you donât work at Swillhouse any moreâ,â the bartender said.
The bartender did not want to press charges because the venue had already been hit by a police strike over an unauthorised after-hours lock-in, which saw its managers sacked.
âIt could have been shut down,â she claimed.
Forte said Shady Pines was never on a âfinal warningâ with police, and the company had never pressured anyone not to file a police report for the benefit of the business.
âIn hindsight, there were areas where we could have done better,â he said.
âThat is why we have comprehensive policies, training and [employment assistance program] services in place for all employees today.â
When the company began mandatory sexual harassment training in 2022, the bartender was too distressed to remain in the seminar after the host, an external consultant, claimed that sexual assault âdoesnât happen hereâ.
âI suffered with pretty much constant harassment, multiple sexual and physical assaults, stalking and bullying the entire time I worked for the company, it completely broke me as a person,â she wrote in an email to the human resources (HR) manager after she left the meeting early.
âAs this was never taken seriously or even addressed at all, it was too hard to sit in the âvaluesâ training yesterday. Iâve spent hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars in therapy just to be able to approach being in hospitality service again.â
The HR manager offered her support and assured her they wanted to âmake sure we have everything in place to ensure this would never happen againâ.
But in June 2022, the bartender had a meeting with the company over her treatment.
âThey brought me into a meeting; they said, âWe didnât know any better. We didnât go to business schoolâ,â she said. âThey could have said sorry. They didnât give a fâ.â
Industry accolades
Swillhouse has won multiple accolades for its establishments across Sydney and is now one of the cityâs largest hospitality groups. It has 334 staff across six venues that earn millions of dollars in revenue each year.
The Good Food Guide described Le Footeâs opening in The Rocks in May 2023 as âthe hottest Sydney restaurant opening of the yearâ for its blend of Mediterranean grill with harbour views.
In 2019, after a series of incidents, Forte reminded all staff to respect their co-workers and to report incidents to their managers. In the same year, Swillhouse appointed an HR specialist and implemented policies on sexual harassment for the first time.
They also offered staff 10 free counselling sessions at the Indigo Project, began hosting a monthly diversity forum and implemented a target of 50 per cent non-male employees company-wide.
In text messages and a phone call after an employee reported sexual harassment at one of the companyâs venues in 2022, Forte was empathetic and offered to talk through their concerns over lunch, but it never eventuated. There is no suggestion that Forte assaulted or harassed employees.
In an all-staff email in February last year, after other allegations were raised, Forte said employees would no longer be entitled to free drinks after their shift or a 50 per cent discount on beverages any other time.
âThis email is tough to write,â he said. âDue to several incidents at our venues involving staff and alcohol, we have had to decide to no longer offer this benefit. We understand that this benefit has been part of the fabric of our business and a considerable part of our culture.
âHowever, our commitment to you is more significant than just offering benefits. As a business, we also need to prioritise and promote a culture of safety and well-being.â
But some employees believe the measures fail to address Swillhouseâs history as a âwild party companyâ. âIt is still ingrained in the foundation,â said one bartender.
In public social media posts dating back to 2013, Forte is repeatedly pictured partially naked in his venues and boasts of a morning blood alcohol content of 0.07. In 2015, he captioned a photo of award-winning bartenders at The Baxter Inn with âSTCâ.
In one post, Swillhouse executive Toby Hilton is pictured alongside Forte who straddles the bar in his underwear. Hilton said âfrom memory ⊠we were trying to recreate a photo by Jean-Claude Van Dammeâ.
Staff say Swillhouseâs position as one of Sydneyâs most prominent hospitality groups meant they felt pressured to stay silent over fears for their economic security.
âPeople need jobs and if you want to earn decent money, you arenât left with many options, itâs either Swillhouse or Merivale,â said one bartender.
âI got really depressed,â said another bartender who said she was assaulted while working at Hubertâs. âI came out of the cult world, and I could not get a job.â
The women said they were speaking out now so that younger women did not have to go through the same turmoil.
âThese owner-operators in Sydney are hiring younger and younger,â one former Baxter Inn bartender said.
âIt just terrifies me that they think theyâve had a culture shift and that other people will have the same experience that we did.â
Iâm not surprised at a lot of that.
As somebody who worked behind a bar for several years in my teens and 20s, it can often be a âtoxic cultureâ Never worked at these venues though.
I lost count of the amount of times I walked in on fellow employees drinking, doing drugs, or even getting laid.
We used to drink behind the bar, not open beers or anything, but weâd organise shots for the staff, pour ourselves a vodka coke every now and then.
Cocaine used to flow quite freely.
I picked up a couple times, but never had sex at work. There were opportunities to do so, but knowing the âsanitary conditionsâ of the venue, well, letâs just say youâd be better off having sex in a dumpster
My wife applied for a job bartending at the Ivy back in the day. She walked out after they told the girls they had to get up on the bar and dance, to audition for Hemmes and his mates, instead of interviewing.
I have stories from friends who have worked in Hemmes venues that would make your stomach churn.
I hate the fact that Hemmes runs the food and beverages options at the SFS. I try very hard not to eat and drink at the SFS - mostly try to drink pre-games in the pubs around the stadium pre-game.
My hairdresser was saying he was there with mates one night and they were chatting up a group of girls. He walked away and about an hour later, they saw the same group trying to help out on of their friends. She was barely conscious. They asked security to help, who proceeded to kick the entire group out. Apparently the hairdresser and his friends went with them to help her out and get her to hospital, where they found sheâd had her drink spikedâŠ
Security was more interested in ensuring someone didnât OD on the premises, than actually helping someone outâŠ
Iâve never understood stuff like this. Surely owning and running a place like that is enough of a panty dropper if youâre just a normal bloke, so why do these guys always feel the need to add lecherous douchebag into the mix?
Again, not uncommon. Similar incidents happened a couple of times at the venue I worked at.
If the Police investigated, it could shut down the pub, have their license suspended/cancelled and the fines enormous. The venue can turn around as well and say that they kicked out the individual on the basis of suspecting they were dealing drugs. Not taking, not being on drugs, but dealing drugs. The venue has then acted in the best interests of all parties.
If everybody is kicked out, and the individual(s) pass out outside/away from the venue, itâs plausible deniability on the venues behalf. All they have to do is claim that they noticed an intoxicated person(s) on their premises, and in lieu with RSA guidelines they were removed from the venue. Once their outside the perimeter of the venue, they no longer have to provide assistance or care to that individual.
If the individual puts a complaint into the Police, theyâre unlikely going to find anything purely because itâs so difficult to prove (even if they manage to find CCTV footage of the incident). The witness/victim is also an extremely unreliable witness, as if the case does wind up going to court, you donât need a good lawyer to rip your story apart on the stand as you were âheavily intoxicated/under the influenceâ
Itâs extremely difficult to proved on the behalf of the affected person that their drink was spiked in that venue. Iâve had a friend who was in a similar situation. She was spiked in a club in the City, I helped her out of the female bathrooms and security were more aggressive than the Public Order Riot Squad in the RBB. They manhandled us out (with me carrying her over my shoulder in a firemans carry), and threw us out. We were also told we were banned from the venue for 12 months (didnât both me, place was a shithole COUGHARCBARCOUGH).
They were kind enough to provide us with a single bottle of water while I sat my friend down and encouraged her to vomit. I ended up calling her an ambulance and she would later get her stomach pumped at St Vincents.
I could go on and on about how the hospitality industry is pretty fucked up. Sadly, short of shutting down all pubs and nightsclubs, itâs not really going to change.
Because the industry lures these sorts of people. Itâs a power trip, add in a young dumb girl who is impressionable as fuck and you can manipulate them like putty, then you add booze and drugs into the mix and well it just gets worse and worse.
How quickly the public forgets⊠all these guys are scumbagsâŠ
So the metro is sick. 10mins to crowie and not having to deal with bus cunts is epic.
Better call the Trainbulance.
Following on from above⊠I had a chuckle at Neil Perryâs quote given Rockpool have been known to fuck over their chefs on 457 visaâs RE: copious unpaid overtime.
Swillhouse CEO Anton Forte stands down from restaurant association board
Revelations in a Herald and Good Food investigation triggered immediate industry blowback as sponsors, artists and partners pulled out of Swillhouseâs upcoming festival.
Swillhouse chief executive Anton Forte has stood down from the board of the Australian Restaurant and Cafe Association after five female employees alleged they were sexually assaulted and harassed at the companyâs high-profile venues, including Restaurant Hubert, Le Foote and the Baxter Inn.
The revelations in an investigation by The Sydney Morning Herald and Good Food triggered immediate industry blowback on Wednesday as sponsors, artists and partners pulled out of Swillhouseâs first major festival, Swillfest.
The former staff also alleged they were encouraged to take drugs while on shift and the company failed to support them after reporting sexual assaults and harassment.
Chef Neil Perry, the chair of the Australian Restaurant and Cafe Association, which represents industry heavyweights Merivale, Fink Group and Accor, said Forte had stood down until the claims had been âthoroughly investigatedâ.
âThere are some serious allegations,â he said. âIâm always concerned by any workplace mismanagement of people. The whole idea of workplace safety is absolutely paramount. We donât like to see any of that happen.â
In a statement, Swillhouse said it responded with urgency whenever serious claims were presented. There is no suggestion that Forte was personally involved in the misconduct.
âIt brings us pain and regret knowing that there have been instances where some of our employees have felt unsupported, unheard or at risk,â the company said. âIn recent years, Swillhouse has made concerted efforts to better support the well-being of our workforce and create a more inclusive and safer workplace.â
The Good Food Guide 2023 Chef of the Year, Annita Potter, said that for too long women in hospitality had been expected to âput up or shut upâ.
âAs awful and uncomfortable as this topic is, people need to know itâs happening at these places so they can make a choice of whether or not they go there. And thatâs not just for employees, itâs for customers as well,â she said.
âThere is power in voicing this, and thereâs a lot of support for women in this situation ⊠this idea [women] canât work in the industry because of this, itâs heartbreaking.â
Swillhouse has spent the past month promoting its first festival in The Rocks, Swillfest, as a new fixture âin the countryâs calendar of iconic, recurring eventsâ.
But those plans were thrown into disarray on Wednesday as popular non-alcoholic beer brand Heaps Normal withdrew its support and musician Maanyung pulled out within hours of the investigation being published. Ice-cream giant Gelato Messina said it would consider its position.
Singer Hevenshe, band Kingswood and brewery Young Henrys did not respond to requests for comment about their participation in the event.
I had never been to that Frankieâs when I was living in Sydney, but I went with a female friend when I was back visiting in late 2019 and the bar staff had a massive dildo they kept slapping female patrons with, both on their faces and arses, my friend almost got it to the face but they luckily missed before she yelled at them. Who knows if it was even clean and the losers behind the bar thought it was all so funny.
Unfortunately we were meeting someone there whoâs phone battery was dead, so we had to wait around for an hour for her.
At least Frankieâs got bulldozed for the new Metro so good riddance to them
The security firm who worked at our pub used to work at Frankies as well. Middle of the lockout laws as well.
After weâd finish work sometimes weâd head to Frankies and theyâd let us in. Remember one night there was 4 of us, we jump out of the cab and there were Cops and OLGR (Office of Liquor Gaming & Racing - Licensing Police) out the front speaking to management.
Well, we just convinced them that we were the midnight crew rocking up to start work and walked straight in, right past the cops, OLGR and everybody.
We knew a few of the girls who worked there, and a couple of us jumped in behind the bar and started pouring beers etc while the Cops did their walk through. When they left, we just started drinking.
Good times.
#fuckthelockoutlaws.
506 steps from my front door to the platform including walking down the escalators. Itâs very sick.
Swillhouse just sounds like Thrillhouse to me and makes it all seem a little comical.
It sounds like somewhere you would stop off after eating at Uncle Moeâs Family Feedbag
May require some treatment in the ICU.
Intensive Carriage Unit
I always say the more self righteous someone is the more full of shit they are.