FLOCK Restaurant & Beer Garden

The Venue:  FLOCK is a friendly restaurant and beer garden located at the Carrington Inn – Bungendore.  It was first open in 1885 and is comprised of the heritage-listed inn building, bar, and outdoor courtyard and grounds.   The roadhouse’s Mahogany Bar is from Bath England, where in 1830 the first drink crossed its counter.  Since being imported more than three decades ago to the Inn, it has been the location where people have come to celebrate friendships, achievements, special occasions, and just let their hair down.

Our Tom Wills Room is available for social gatherings, work celebrations, or small business presentations. The name of the room is drawn from Thomas Wentworth Wills, 19th century cricket and rugby sporting icon, hailed as founder of Australian Rules Football.  Tom was born in 1836 just up the road from the Inn near the property Foxlow, then owned by his uncle, soldier and settler, Henry Colden Antill.

The building’s decor draws inspiration from the Victorian era of the building, and takes pleasure in incorporating late 19th century innovations of textured walls, coffered ceilings, and chesterfield leather seating.

Its use of deep blue, red and green tartan wall colours and pure copper ceiling in the cosy bar, wraps the space around a visitor like a comfortable coat.  Its uncurtained small pane glass windows, simple slate fireplace, and natural wooden floors are recognisable notes of colonial civilisation, arousing and innate sense of roots and arrival.

The courtyard and the Elm Park Garden are open to the sky above for outdoor gatherings. The garden is a quiet oasis from the main road, shaded by mature trees. There, guests share a sense of the original spaciousness of the yard. Behaved dogs are welcome if on a lead. Our intention is to create a welcoming, relaxing, family friendly environment in which to catch up with friends over a meal and drink.

The venue’s name is inspired by the kookaburras on the Carrington Inn logo of whom you’ll often hear in the gardens at dawn and dusk singing their distinctive calls. Flock is the collective noun for kookaburras.

Did you know Kookaburras mate for life and build their nests in a tree hollow or in a burrow excavated from a termite mound. Both parents incubate the eggs and care for the chicks.

The Food & Beverage:  The  menu provides a variety of gastropub fare for a full meal or just a nibble if you are not too hungry.   The roadhouse is a wholefood establishment that uses local produce when available.

The menu draws primarily on steakhouse precedents tempered by a good sense of proportion.  While oriented toward red meat mains, it certainly caters well for other protein eaters as well as vegetarians.  Young persons are catered for with a number of healthy and affordable selections.

The roadhouse’s small-plate food offerings are made to be shared.  Its treats make munching and drinking with friends fun.  Guests wishing to have a full meal in our hall or courtyard can order from the full menu.  Our service is not rushed, giving you time to socialise.

Our drink selection includes craft and popular draft beers, mid-to-top shelve spirits, and a regional and international wine selection of recognised estates and good character. The selection is aspirational and rewarding.

The tavern’s heated veranda provides a dry and warm space to take in food, drink and fresh air for much of the year. Live music is occasionally performed Sunday afternoons in the courtyard, just as the Winter-Gallagher family did a century ago.