Thriving & Jiving ‘On The Soul Side’ Of Town

Apart from its mean coffee and live music, one of the things I love most about Dave Griffiths’ On The Soul Side cafe in Katoomba’s Hotel Gearin is the feeling you get of walking into a friend’s living room upon entry. While the space used to serve schooners and pints to fuel wild nights, a custom that stopped around six years ago, Griffiths has totally transformed the grungy pub feel of the place into a peaceful chill out zone with a homemade stage, antique toys, books and guitars.

Situated ‘on the soul side’ of Katoomba’s railway tracks, across the divide from Katoomba St and nighttime haunts like the Station Bar, On The Soul Side has manifested a strong hold on dozens of people, who are content to while away their hours in supreme comfort. They might be listening to live music played by local musicians on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays from 10AM, or warming their extremities by the open-face fireplace…(a treat on Katoomba’s rare snow days). The cafe offers plenty to look at, from gig posters and CDs to photos of Griffiths’ fellow muso friends, like Design Heroes’ Mark Alston.

Styled to captivate tinkerers, craftspeople, and tourists alike, the cafe attracts visitors from far and wide. “There’s a Chinese version of Instagram called Little Red Book [AKA Xiaohongshu, from which] some big influencer came in, had a great time and an ice cream, and put a thing up about us,” Griffiths explained. “So we get lots of people from mainland China coming in for the ice cream and hanging out, which is pretty cool”. The place’s multiculturalism is a constant. Upon walking in to the cafe for our interview, I met a young woman from Mexico, before Griffiths told me about his muso friend Adam, who he described as “a Polynesian Willie Nelson”. Adam entertains the coffee drinkers there on Sundays from 10AM before traditional Irish folk sessions, which start at 2PM.

On June 23rd, during Winter Magic Indoors, On The Soul Side will host a full-day live music event featuring favourite performers from 10AM to 8PM. “It’s more of a soul-folk focus,” Griffiths adds, “with genres like Russian gypsy music and traditional Irish music”. The day before on June 22, the youth-centric event ‘SOUL’D OUT’ will transform the shop into the Winter Magic Youth Stage, featuring local rockers Paint Job (in an ‘MTV Unplugged’ fashion), supported by Mountains Youth Services Team (MYST) and headspace.

So, why not come in and relax with a cup or two? The re-upgraded surround sound speaker system will provide all the immersive clarity you need, after its current rebuild with help from local musician-technician Reyhn Marvin (Tap Hammer). A power spike damaged it. Griffiths described the incident: “The electricity grid had to get turned off, a massive generator powered the place, and the electrician put a wrong wire in the wrong place…plugs flew out of rooms and televisions caught fire.”

During the June 22-23 events, you might hear tales of the Gearin’s 25 resident lawn-mowing guinea pigs or marvel at Griffiths’ motorbikes, piano, or massive Weddings Parties Anything poster. “A mate of mine, Shane, cut [the poster] off the big bridge that goes down the back of Glebe,” Griffiths revealed. “He’s had it for the last 20 years, then finally decided it needed to live here.” Speaking of Sydney, Griffiths was born in Bankstown, and he moved down from Queensland to open his On The Soul Side after running The Naked Baker.

It’s a testament to his creativity and passion that the cafe, which opened two days into the first COVID-19 lockdown of late March, 2020, has thrived. While his future ideas of a boutique nighttime bar, an electric skateboard company, a record label and a vinyl press are yet to be actualised, a stage, a fireplace, and a great coffee machine are excellent foundations.

Griffiths and his cafe have also inspired local artwork. From February to March, Bette Mifsud’s 3D portrait of On The Soul Side was displayed in the Blue Mountains Cultural Centre’s Portraits 2024 show. Seated upon a plinth, it showed Griffiths through a layered vertical frame of prints mounted on hand-cut wooden panels. 

“I just expected a normal photo,” Griffiths recounted. “I couldn’t believe how much thought went into it, and how immersive it was…everyone was interacting with it, smiling and having a good time.”

To quote the current hand-painted saying on the side of Griffiths’ black van home, “you can’t have too many bikes, too many guitars, or too many good friends around”.