The gypsies are an illusive folk. Do you know what else is illusive? Really tasty $10 lunches and live music every night of the week. It just so happens that those are the two highlights of Brunswick Street’s Gypsy Bar. To get noticed on Brunswick Street, many venues will put on quite a sidewalk show—potted plants, fairy lights, or anything that flags down passersby. Outside Gypsy Bar, there is a sign that reads “$10 Lunch,” and nothing more. I’m there.

The $10 lunch menu will draw you in by day. It’s extensive and certainly not lacking in variety. To name a few, the menu offers nachos, fish and chips, chorizo linguine, a hamburger with chips, and few different risottos, salads, and toasties. Taking into account the portion:cost ratio, I can say quite confidently that it is an incredible value. If nothing on the special menu strikes your fancy, there’s a separate selection of reasonably-priced mains, ranging from $14.50 (vegetable curry) to $17.90 (bangers and mash).

By night, the live music at Gypsy Bar is the main attraction. It’s on seven nights a week—that’s every single night!—and several different genres are represented. Sometimes you’ll be serenaded by a man with a guitar and a mellifluous voice; the next night a reggae band will hit the stage.

It undergoes a complete transformation when the day fades into nighttime. It changes from a café with a great menu, checkers and chessboards, and streetpress strewn about to a bar with drinks flowing and music pumping. It’s cosy and looks pre-loved in a way that suggests it’s the favourite hangout of many.

Whether you go for the lunch and stay for the checkers, or go for the checkers and stay for the music, or go for the music and stay for the atmosphere, Gypsy Bar will end your nomadic ways.