Great bars are built on more than standout drinks; they’re shaped by the people behind the stick. At Savile Row, that means a team united by years of industry experience, a passion for genuine hospitality and a commitment to making every guest feel at home.
Behind an unmarked orange door in Fortitude Valley sits one of the largest spirit collections in Australia. But ask the team at Brisbane whisky and cocktail bar, Savile Row, what keeps the room running, and the answer is rarely the liquid on the back bar. It is the people, and the way they work together.
As the venue heads toward its ninth birthday, with its biggest Barlympics event yet planned alongside some of Queensland’s biggest bars, four of its team talk about service, guests and what keeps them behind the stick.
Savile Row venue manager, Leah Dunnigan, has spent two years at the bar, moving from bartender to running the floor, and marks a decade in hospitality this year. Much of the team, she said, are in it for the long haul.
“Our team are so knowledgeable and enthralled with the art and beauty of service, we have the ability to offer such a wide variety of offerings,” she says.
Whether a guest wants a whisky, a cocktail, a beer “or even Midori and milk”, the brief is the same: be equipped for any ask. The best shifts, she says, are the ones where the team moves as one.
“Even when we have a night understaffed or we get an unexpected rush, the Savile team digs their heels in and does it with a smile and laughter,” she says.
Dunnigan describes her own role as the “annoying mother”, pushing people to their potential while making sure they are alright at the end of the night. Her approach to service borrows from the bar’s stock in trade: treat it with the same three things you would use to make the perfect whisky, patience, craft and care.
Savile Row prep manager, Simone Fraterrigo, is one of the venue’s longest-serving hands, almost five years in. He started behind a bar making coffee at 16, moved to cocktails and spirits at 18, and counts the room’s energy and range among the reasons he has stayed.
“At Savile you can be yourself and enjoy working in hospitality in all its shapes. You don’t have to fake a good service, we love what we do,” he says.
He measures a good shift by the guests. “Making someone’s night, when guests leave with a huge smile and I’m the reason, it makes my shift,” he says, adding it is why he remains in love with hospitality after all these years.
For Fraterrigo, his mission is to make others fall in love with it too, not just to make good cocktails.
Savile Row bartender, Kyle Quinn, is eight months into his time at the venue and his ninth year in the industry. For him, the guests are the best part of the job, every time.
“You get the busy nights where you can have fun, then you get the quiet nights where you get to have the deep and meaningful conversations with people who are there to relax, let go and, honestly, the best of all, learn,” he says.
What he brings is coverage. He is happy to hold a section so the rest of the team can spend time with guests, though he is quick to add that once he is on the floor, he is “everyone’s best friend”.
Savile Row bartender, Hannah Hebron, has been at the venue for just over a year, with eight years in hospitality behind her. Her passion sits with the back bar, and whisky in particular, and she says Savile Row has resparked it.
“Never ending things to learn, always somewhere to find passion for hospitality in this bar,” she says.
Her best shifts are the ones where everyone arrives with the same energy, glad to see each other, joking with a section partner while still making a guest’s night.
Across the four, the through line holds: a team that treats service as a craft, in a venue built to back them. Or, as Dunnigan puts it, patience, craft and care, the same things that go into the perfect whisky.