If you happen to walk in the front door of Belconnen's Lighthouse Bar on a Monday night, you might be forgiven for thinking you're in the wrong place.
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On the old dance floor - once packed with youngsters grooving to The Cardigans and Tone Loc - you'll find 15 aspiring artists, painting watercolour landscapes as part of regular Life with Paint classes.
It's just one of many changes new owner Spiro Tsiros has implemented since taking over The Lighthouse Bar several months ago. Since the glory days of 'Sails - The Waterfront Bar' in the 1990s, the bar has changed hands four times and officially re-branded to The Lighthouse circa 2003.
When Tsiros took over last year, he admitted the bar had "become a bit unloved".
"It needed an awful amount of attention and investment that I was ready to put in," he says.
"I saw a business that just needed a little cuddle."
That cuddle has included a complete makeover of the bar's interior, with the daggy blue and white 'beach' colour scheme replaced with the glossy black tiles, vintage wooden furniture and greenery of modern gastro pubs.
The old dance floor is now an enclosed room for quiet catch-ups; booth seating has been installed for eating in the big back room and musicians now perform on the pointy end of the triangular deck, looking back at the entire venue.
But the bar's reputation for luring University of Canberra students in with cheap booze is not a major focus for Tsiros. He'll host the occasional uni night for UC students - including one in O Week on February 6 - but he wants The Lighthouse to be "less about 18-year-olds writing themselves off and more about being accessible to everyone".
"Belconnen doesn't have a place where everyone's welcome," he says.
"[The Lighthouse] tended for a while to be solely aimed at uni nights. It was more a nightclub and that's not what I do.
"I wanted the chance to bring it back to just being a pub."
Buying The Lighthouse would have "shocked and delighted" a young Tsiros who, as a commerce student at the University of Canberra in the 1990s, would stumble home from Sails in the wee hours.
"Younger me would have been like, 'Yes! Free drinks!" Tsiros laughs.
The former UC student's high profile career has included a role as the general manager of the New Zealand Warriors, marketing manager of the Canberra Raiders and a role in marketing at Kellogg's.
He also once owned cafes Mizzuna and Momo on the UC campus at Bruce. Managing a bar on the shores of Lake Ginninderra is "a return to my hospitality roots", he says.
"The changes [to The Lighthouse] have made people feel welcome. We've made it a venue that people now feel comfortable in and that's what I'm most proud of."
Despite the makeover, there's something that's remained the same since the bar's early days as Sails.
"The floor still gets sticky," Tsiros laughs.
