Located in the corner of the Perth Institute of Creative Arts, PICA Bar has been a cool kid on the block for years, but in 2019, the owners campaigned for a 10-year lease – which they were granted – resulting in renovations to make the iconic Northbridge space even cooler. The building is heritage listed, as it was once part of the Perth Boys School which originally opened in 1847 in St Georges Terrace and was moved to the current Northbridge location in 1897. The PICA Bar renovations in 2019 transformed the alfresco dining area, restored the Jarrah floorboards, hid the once open plan kitchen in its own self-contained area and removed the fake ceiling to give the feeling of extra space. Most importantly, they also expanded the drinks list – which is where Barons came in! What was the client’s issue that needed fixing? PICA Bar – a Northbridge go-to in the heart of the cultural district – recently got an extension on their lease for their bar, allowing them to invest back into their site and perform a major upgrade. For years they ran out of a tiny matchbox cool room so their longer-term lease meant they could finally install a much larger cool room and a bigger range of draught beer. What was the nature of your solution? Barons aided in designing a cool room to go down in a basement area which would give the ability to cold store larger volumes of kegs, packaged products and ultimately, provide a larger range of draught beer to the PICA Bar patrons. We installed 20 taps into their newly renovated bar and reticulated them back to their new basement cool room. The addition of beer pumps reduced CO2 consumption within the venue by 80%. Reusing the venue’s existing two 5-way fonts, we added two more to match what was already in the venue and also to keep costs down so now the venue has 20-taps. Anything interesting/exciting/different about the job? Integrating equipment into a heritage-listed building limited what could or couldn’t be done. However, two beer pythons needed to be run underneath the heritage floors, and into the adjacent basement area – this task was by no means easy, but as per usual our team got it done! Beer Dispense System Information Number of Taps: 20 Font Type: 4 x 5-way Tee Bar Font Finish: Chrome System Type: Chiller Plate & Beer Pump |
