King Street
King Street from Missenden Road south to St Peters is over two kilometres of independent commercial life — bookshops (Gleebooks, Better Read Than Dead), record stores, cafés, restaurants, bars, vintage clothing boutiques, tattoo studios, and vegetarian and vegan restaurants that serve a demographic that has been voting with its feet for this street for forty years. The Courthouse Hotel runs jazz on Sunday afternoons. The Marlborough runs live music three nights a week. Neither has tried to become something different to attract a different demographic. They haven't needed to.
The food scene on King Street has become more serious without losing its democratic character. Gigi Pizzeria does some of the best Italian in Sydney. Mary's Newtown does the double smash burger that food media writes about every two years as if it's a discovery. Oscillate Wildly in St Peters — just past the suburb's southern boundary — has a degustation menu with a natural wine list that competes with any restaurant in the country. The street feeds everyone from the student eating pad thai for $15 to the couple eating the tasting menu for $300 without trying to be anything it isn't.

