Eighteen-ish to 20-something women would dress in their finest jeans and a nice top, likely peplum, or latest FSHN BNKR purchase (vowels were so 2009).

With orange-toned Maybelline Dream Matte Mousse foundation clinging to their pores and Steve Madden boots on their toes, they were ready for a night of VCR madness.

The men would pull on their tightest denim and shortest-sleeved shirt to accompany a $3 pint at the Havelock Hotel on a Thursday night.

For those in the know, a prominent bouncer around town would skip the ID check in exchange for a dubious kiss on the cheek.

Or, for an unlucky few, a drunken club-goer’s decision to bring a faecal log from the bathroom to the dance floor – filmed for posterity – may have prompted a therapy session or two.

While many of these venues have now gone or lost the lustre of their heyday, some have gone from strength to strength.

Looking for a trip down an earlier memory lane? See our list of Adelaide’s clubs of the 70s-2000s here.

Havelock Hotel

It was Thursday night ‘uni nights’ that sparked some of the hottest deals across town, and what better way to start the evening than the Havelock Hotel’s $3 pints, 2-4-1 base spirits and Jagerbomb specials.

As university revellers raced the clock before the Havey’s midnight closure (and the next day’s 9am lecture), the Hutt St venue’s balcony would heave with the kind of drinks density the liquor licencing commissioner probably wouldn’t look too fondly on these days.

Saracens Head

While the Saracens’ pokies intended to offer a moment of gambling for its revellers, more often the quiet room played host to a disco pash with a uni crush during a night out.

Built in 1873, the dining room inside the Saracens Head’s history-steeped walls was repurposed into a dance floor on Thursday nights, playing host to crowds who stumbled their way over from first drinks at the Havelock Hotel in the Havey-Sarrys pilgrimage.

At its peak, lines of eagerly-waiting partiers would snake well around the corner of the venue – but the Covid pandemic and slowing Hutt St trade led to it falling into administration in 2021.

Electric Circus/Mr Kim’s

Tucked inside Crippen Place, ‘EC’ was cemented as one of Adelaide’s places to be seen when pop superstar Rihanna graced its dance floor – for a Calvin Harris gig no less – and labelled it “one of the coolest clubs in Australia”.

The intimate basement venue’s electro-house offerings were well worth the line-up for Adelaide’s raucous (mostly) 18-year-olds.

With a massive fish tank and kitsch interior warmed with red lanterns, its neighbour Mr Kim’s was established in 2012 – pitching itself as a slightly more laid-back urban music haven for Adelaide’s young hip-hop lovers.

PJ O’Brien’s

The year 2012 marked the end of an era for East Tce venue PJ O’Brien’s pumping Thursday night trade, when the state government cracked down on gender-based promotions and halted its much-loved ‘Ladies Nights’.

The Irish pub offered free vodka drinks to women, followed by heavily price-reduced drinks, on Thursday nights – meaning women could buy more than seven vodka drinks for $10 over the space of three hours.

While a three and two-for-one vodka deal remained – for all genders – for a short while after the ban was imposed, the venue called last drinks in 2017.

Manager Nick Havriluk said Red Rock Leisure, which ran the PJ O’Brien’s venues in the eastern states, blamed Adelaide’s small bar revolution for the Irish venue’s demise.

Sugar

One of Adelaide’s most iconic nightclubs, Sugar’s legacy stretches far beyond the party years of the past decade.

Sugar literally rose from the ashes of the former long-running Q Bar, which had just been rebuilt and reopened after a fire in 2001, in the same upstairs venue on Rundle St.

The venue’s Wednesday nights were a thing of legend among uni students and celebrities alike during the early 2010s, with the dance floor pumping and bathrooms clogged – in more ways than one – well into the early hours.

Under the guidance of proprietor and turntable guru Driller Jet Armstrong, some 375 international and interstate guest DJs and musicians manned the decks or performed at Sugar over the past two decades.

But, in December 2022, skyrocketing insurance premiums forced the venue’s closure – a day after celebrating its 20th anniversary.

Rocket Rooftop

Perched atop live music institution Rocket Bar, making the trek up the three-storey Hindley St venue’s staircase only to line up once more for the exclusive rooftop space was a right of passage on a Friday or Saturday night.

With capacity for just 100 people, the illustrious rooftop and its pineapple-covered bar was an in-between favourite for those looking for a quiet moment (or a place to light a cheeky cig) between thumping DJ sets below.

Tijuana Showgirls/Go Go Ladyboy/Super California

A venue of many names and even more tales, the private school crowd of Adelaide flocked to down a Saturday night vodka soda at Tijuana Showgirls (known fondly as TJs) after its opening in mid-2013.

The Hindley St venue attracted criticism after a controversial rebrand to ‘Go Go Ladyboy’ in 2015, with many labelling the name “racist” and transphobic.

Owner Alexander Kleut said no offence was intended by the name change, which was intended to “capture the spirit of Thailand”, but the club switched titles once more just a year later in 2016 – to Palm Springs-inspired ‘Super California’.

Church/Apple Bar/Mary’s Poppin

Church’s “90c beer, wine and bubbly” happy hour was the thing of legend, a hedonistic haunt throughout the 90s and into the 2000s, until a 2009 name change to Apple Bar.

While Apple saw fewer Big Brother evictees than its religious-inspired predecessor, it stayed a regular spot for clubgoers throughout the 2010s.

Nowadays, the site remains a staple of the Adelaide night scene, with new life breathed into it in the form of LGBTQIA+ safe space Mary’s Poppin, where a good time can be had by all.

Supermild

If the words, ‘I fell into a burning ring of fire’, spark anything within you, you’ve probably had a Coopers Sparkling longneck or Aunt Jemima in your hand at Supermild.

For the more alternative crowd, slipping down into the basement at Supermild was like entering another world. A compact space with a very grungy feel (and filthy floor), and an epic ability for DJs to just rattle off banger after banger, ‘Supers’ had an almost cult following in its heyday.

Supermild was a destination you had to know about, as opposed to a place you would just stumble across, and many a tear was shed when it closed the doors on its original home on the ‘quiet’ west end of Hindley.

Jive

It’s hard to lump Jive into the bucket of ‘2010s clubs’, given a campaign to keep the western Hindley venue alive in 2020 was a roaring success.

For 20 years, Jive has played host to everyone from Aussie psych kings King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard to US guitar legend Nile Rogers – but its live music genealogy was bolstered by its still-running beloved club nights.

While the bands were popular long before the generations it drew, punters were greeted through its coloured doors by a roaring dance floor of ABBA and David Bowie hits and $5 cans of Coopers – every Dancing Queen’s dream.

Rhino Room

Before its extinction-preventing move to Pirie St, Rhino Room’s two-storey Frome St home was a grungy hide-out for the indie kids of Adelaide.

Its legendary Transmission indie-rock nights blasted everything from Arctic Monkeys to The Strokes for the, ‘Do you even know this band?’ crowd that relished ‘Mr Brightside’ over Party Rock Anthem.

A crowd-funding campaign helped Rhino Rhoom relocate in 2017, after the Frome St venue was demolished for a 36-storey apartment complex.

HQ

From humble beginnings some 40 years ago as Bojangles, then Joplins and eventually the notorious Heaven superclub, which ruled Adelaide’s night-life in the mid-90s, HQ — as it was known for a decade — remained the number one party venue in town after its rebrand in 2006.

Big names such as Snoop Dogg, Coolio, Carl Cox, Will Sparks, Tiesto, Armand Van Helden were hallmarks of the club’s main stage.

Some, including this author, may have even shared their first kiss at one of HQ’s incredibly popular ‘underage’ nights.

The venue moved to Hindley St in July 2017 after shutting down its premises on North and West Tce, spending $15 million on the relocation – but closed its doors for good in 2020.

Woolshed

They say the best never die, and nothing could truer for the garish country lights of Hindley St’s Woolshed.

For decades, the ‘Shed has been popular with country folk who had popped into the big smoke, private school boarders (all of whom, of course, would’ve been over the age of 18 …) and those with a penchant for Bundy and a bit of Garth Brooks or Britney Spears (it didn’t discriminate).

Also a popular spot for city slickers eager to showcase some RMs or an Akubra, the Woolshed often reserved its biggest shindigs for the weekend of the Clipsal 500, when racegoers would flock to the venue and, ahem, other ‘entertainment’ destinations on Hindley Street.

Nowadays, it’s more about the mechanical bull (one of the city’s great night-life attractions) and DJs.

Dog & Duck

What began as a relatively normal pub in the thick of Hindley St action in the mid 2000s, the Dog & Duck’s infamous social media presence cemented it as a 2010s favourite with some of Adelaide’s most insane promotions.

Known for its tit-for-tat rivalry with across-the-road club giant Red Square, ‘The Dog’s’ happy hour specials and ‘VIP’ promotions drew plenty a crowd.

While the club has found itself in hot water for some of its more, ahem, unusual promotions (its ‘used condom’ offer sparked quite the flurry on social media), it’s still going strong as a go-to for Hindley St partiers.

Zhivago

Established in 2003, even Twilight star Robert Pattinson paid a visit to Zhivago’s original Light Square home before the club made the move to a Currie St basement in 2012.

With a hospo worker discount card in hand, Sundays at ‘Zhivvys’ were a belated weekend blowout for Adelaide’s cafe and bar crew looking to let loose.

La Sing

It wouldn’t be a wrap-up of Adelaide’s late-night venues without a tip-of-the-hat to karaoke institution La Sing, dubbed by former premier Steven Marshall as the best after-2am venue in the world.

As readily as drunken revellers would come for the poor Daryl Braithwaite impersonations, they would stay for the Guava Vodka Cruisers and pad thai.

Trying to focus woozy eyes on the tiny barcode inside the karaoke bar’s darkened purple booths and hefty plastic-sleeved folders was perhaps the greatest challenge of the night – but if you were lucky enough to sneak a smile from owner Ung Chin, it was all worth it when you’d hit the big stage.