Moon Dog is taking its Wild West concept regional for the first time, complete with a mechanical bull, four bars, live music, line dancing and plenty of tacos.
Geelong is about to get a whole lot more yeehaw, with Moon Dog announcing that its Wild West venue is heading down the M1 and opening at the old Geelong Hotel site on Yarra Street this December.
Moon Dog Wild West Geelong will take over the two-level venue at 69 Yarra Street, with space for up to 900 people and plenty of the same stuff that has made the Footscray original such a popular night out.
There’ll be four bars pouring Moon Dog beers, Fizzer seltzers, ciders, boozy slusheez and pre-mixed drinks, along with cocktails, wine and the venue’s famous cowboy shots. You can even order a Guavarama served in a giant cowboy boot, because apparently a normal cocktail glass just wasn’t western enough.
The real star of the show, though, will be the mechanical bull, which is being brought over from Texas for the new venue. Getting the thing inside is proving to be a bit of an operation, with Moon Dog planning to remove a wall downstairs so the bull can actually make it through the door.
It’s already become one of the biggest drawcards at Moon Dog Wild West in Footscray, where more than 75,000 people have had a crack at riding it. The original venue has also welcomed around 650,000 people through its doors since opening, so Moon Dog clearly thinks the formula has legs outside Melbourne too.
Food will keep things suitably casual, with pub favourites joined by tacos, jalapeño poppers and queso dip. There’s also a five-wing hot sauce flight for anyone keen to test their tolerance, with each wing coming with a progressively hotter sauce.
Come the weekend, the upstairs space will turn into more of a party, with live music, DJs and line dancing taking over the dance floor. It’s very much designed to be somewhere you can settle in for the whole night rather than just drop by for a quick drink.
Moon Dog co-founder Karl van Buuren said the Geelong site was a particularly good fit for the concept and that the brewery was excited to be heading regional for the first time.
With a 900-person capacity, a mechanical bull flown in from Texas and an opening just in time for summer, Moon Dog Wild West Geelong is shaping up to be one of the city’s more interesting new places to spend a Friday night.
Moon Dog Wild West Geelong opens at 69 Yarra Street, Geelong early December 2026, visit Moon Dog for updates.
