What to do in the Inner West this Easter Weekend: April 2026

Four days off. The Inner West slows down just enough to remind you why you live here. Whether you're staying local all weekend or using it as an excuse to finally do something you've been putting off, here's everything you need to know.

Good Friday is a restricted trading day in NSW and the rules are worth knowing before you make plans.

Major supermarkets (Woolworths, Coles, Aldi), department stores and large retailers are closed. Bottle shops are also closed all day by law with no exceptions. If you need wine for Friday night, buy it Thursday.

What's open: Cafes, restaurants and takeaways are exempt and trade normally. Pharmacies, petrol stations, IGA and small grocers with four or fewer staff can open. Pubs and licensed venues are also exempt, though some may choose to open later or close earlier than usual on public holidays, so it's worth checking with your local directly.

Easter Saturday and Easter Monday have no retail trading restrictions. Easter Sunday follows similar rules to Good Friday. Major retailers close, but cafes and restaurants trade normally.

Most venues post their Easter hours on Instagram in the days before the weekend rather than updating Google. Worth a quick check of their story if you're planning ahead. Superfreak is confirmed open across the Easter weekend and the others below are all expected to trade.

Superfreak: Sunlit retro space, rainbow brekkie plates, solid coffee, and the kind of queue that tells you it's worth it.
Hours: 8am–2pm Easter weekend (confirmed)
Address: 333a Enmore Rd, Marrickville

ONA Coffee: Three separate coffee experience bars covering filter, espresso, and specialty, plus a serious all-day food menu. One of the most interesting coffee experiences in Sydney, right here in Marrickville. Check Instagram for Easter hours.
Hours: Mon – Fri 7:30am–3pm, Weekends 8am–3pm
Address: 58 Smith St, Marrickville

Two Chaps: Handmade pastries and bread daily, house sticky chai, produce-driven seasonal menu. A Chapel Street institution for good reason. Check Instagram for Easter hours.
Address: 122 Chapel St, Marrickville

Sit: The Baba's Place crew's new social enterprise cafe, open since March 2026. Stacked pancakes, silky rolled omelettes and house-cultured yoghurt in a beautifully considered space. One of the most exciting new openings in the Inner West this year. Check Instagram for Easter hours.
Address: Illawarra Rd, Marrickville

Valentina's: American diner-style all-day breakfast that consistently delivers. The kind of place you take people visiting from out of town, because it never lets you down. Check Instagram for Easter hours.
Address: 132 Livingstone Rd, Marrickville

One Another: Homemade focaccias, seasonal egg dishes and solid coffee in a neighbourhood feel that earns it. Exactly what a Newtown cafe should be. Check Instagram for Easter hours.
Address: 131 Wilson St, Newtown

Bourke Street Bakery: Legendary pastries, proper sandwiches, and a suntrap outdoor table situation. Perfect for a slow Friday morning when everything else in the suburb is closed. Check Instagram for Easter hours.
Address: 2 Mitchell St, Marrickville

Easter Saturday (4 April)

Carriageworks Farmers Market: Just over the Inner West border but spiritually one of ours. The best produce market in Sydney covering organic vegetables, artisan bread, cheese, smoked salmon, fresh flowers and coffee worth crossing suburbs for. Get there early.
Hours: 8am–1pm
Address: 245 Wilson St, Eveleigh
Price: Free entry

Glebe Markets: Vintage fashion, handcrafted goods and original art. A good Saturday morning wander.
Hours: 10am–4pm
Address: Glebe Public School, 9 Derwent St, Glebe
Price: Free entry

EQ Easter Markets: Over 60 stalls covering handcrafted gifts, artisan food, Easter chocolates, fresh produce and street food.
Hours: 8am–4pm
Address: Entertainment Quarter, 122 Lang Rd, Moore Park
Price: Free entry

Easter Sunday (5 April)

Addison Road Organic Market: Organic fruit and veg, fresh bread, Shoalhaven oysters, Brooklyn Boy Bagels, and La Casa Latina on the first and fourth Sunday of the month. Bring your own bags, bring the dog, bring enough time to sit on the grass for a bit.
Hours: 8:30am–3pm
Address: 142 Addison Rd, Marrickville
Price: Free entry

These are the ticketed and planned events running across the long weekend. Book ahead where noted.

The Prom: The Tony-nominated Broadway musical runs until 19 April. A proper night out within walking distance of the neighbourhood.
When: Wed–Thu 7pm, Fri–Sat 7:30pm, Sat 2pm, Sun 1pm and 6pm.
Address: Shop 30A, 23 Norton St, Leichhardt
Tickets: Buy here from $55

Biennale of Sydney at White Bay Power Station: One of the best free things you can do in Sydney right now, and a short trip from the Inner West. Large-scale installations, weekend food markets and family days throughout.
When: Tue–Sun 10am–5pm (including Easter weekend0
Address: White Bay Power Station, Robert St, Rozelle
Price: Free entry

The Grounds of Alexandria Easter Egg Hunt: The famous garden laneways transformed into a scavenger hunt for Easter eggs, including two hidden golden eggs with prizes. Spots are limited and sessions sell out quickly.
Hours: Sessions 8:30am–9:30am, Good Friday to Easter Sunday
Address: 7a/2 Huntley St, Alexandria
Tickets: Buy here via Humanitix

Sydney Family Easter Show: Carnival rides, egg hunt with a $2,000 giveaway basket, animal nursery, Outback Jack Stockman Show and motorcycle stunts.
Hours: 2–19 April, daily
Address: Entertainment Quarter, 122 Lang Rd, Moore Park
Tickets: Adult $30, Child $15, Family $75. Buy here

Pubs are legally exempt from Good Friday trading restrictions and can open. Hours may vary on public holidays, so it's worth a quick check with your local if you're planning ahead.

Public House Petersham (PHP): The gold standard. Enormous beer garden with street art murals, woodfired pizza and craft taps. On public holidays the fun spills into the carpark.
Address: 292 Stanmore Rd, Petersham

Henson Park Hotel (The Heno): Dog and kid-friendly, local beers on tap, open 7 days. As neighbourhood as it gets.
Address: 91 Illawarra Rd, Marrickville

Courthouse Hotel (The Courty): Leafy courtyard, long wooden benches, frangipani trees. An Inner West institution that earns its reputation every single time.
Address: 202 Australia St, Newtown

Golden Barley Hotel: Family-owned since 1939, beer garden runs the full length of the pub under a thick native tree canopy. The kind of pub that still feels independent because it actually is.
Address: 165 Edgeware Rd, Enmore

Vic on the Park: Big beer garden, basketball court, pool tables. A reliably good time.
Address: 2 Addison Rd, Marrickville

Sauce Brewing Co: Craft brewery with a beer garden and rotating food trucks. A low-key afternoon that earns its place.
Address: 1 Mitchell St, Marrickville

The Inner West keeps families well covered over four days and plenty of it is free.

Leichhardt Park Aquatic Centre: Beautiful in autumn light and one of the best family spots in the Inner West. Open on public holidays. Note that daylight savings ends on Easter Sunday (5 April) and clocks go back one hour at 3am.
Hours: 6am–7pm on public holidays
Address: Leichhardt Park, Leichhardt
Price: Variable

The Grounds of Alexandria Easter Egg Hunt: Morning sessions running 3–5 April. Book ahead.
Hours: Sessions 8:30am–9:30am
Address: 7a/2 Huntley St, Alexandria
Tickets: Buy here via Humanitix

Sydney Family Easter Show: The most comprehensive family day out of the weekend, right on the Inner West doorstep.
Hours: 2–19 April, daily
Address: Entertainment Quarter, 122 Lang Rd, Moore Park
Tickets: Adult $30, Child $15, Family $75. Buy here

Centennial Park: A short trip from the Inner West and beautifully quiet over Easter, particularly on Monday. Hire bikes at the park gates and ride the loop, or pack a picnic and find a spot near the duck pond. Address: Grand Dr, Centennial Park Price: Free

Enmore Park and the Greenway: The Greenway is one of the nicest things about the Inner West that people don't use enough. Walk or ride from Rozelle all the way through to Dulwich Hill without touching a main road. Price: Free

The long weekend has a particular quality to it. The pace drops, the suburb opens up, and there's a version of the Inner West that only really exists when half the city has left. These are some of the best ways to make the most of it.

Get a game going at your local oval: Marrickville Oval, Enmore Park, Henson Park are all available over Easter. Grab a cricket bat, a footy, whatever you've got. The Inner West has more good parkland than most people use and it's rarely as accessible as it is on a long weekend.

Walk the Cooks River path: The full Cooks River walk from Tempe to Strathfield is one of Sydney's underrated urban walks. Eleven kilometres of flat, leafy path with good bird life and almost no one else on it over Easter. Even just the Marrickville to Earlwood stretch is a solid hour and a half.

Ride the Bay Run: The 7km loop around Iron Cove is the Inner West's best leisure activity and it's significantly less crowded on a Monday morning when everyone else is recovering. Grab a coffee from somewhere on the way and make an event of it.

Visit Camperdown Memorial Rest Park: A working cemetery turned community park right in the heart of Newtown, with enormous Moreton Bay figs and a peaceful atmosphere that's hard to find this close to King Street. Good for a book, a quiet sit, or a morning walk with the dog.

Explore Callan Park: The grounds of the former Rozelle Hospital are open to the public and worth an entire afternoon. Sweeping harbour views, sandstone buildings, walking tracks and a sense of space that feels impossible for somewhere so close to the city.

Do the Inner West Ale Trail: If you've never done a proper circuit of the local breweries, including Wildflower, Sauce, Kicks, Factory Theatre, Bracket and Mixtape, a long weekend is the best time to attempt it. Walk or ride between them. Pace yourself accordingly.

Explore a suburb you don't usually end up in: Balmain on a quiet Easter Sunday. The backstreets of Dulwich Hill in the afternoon. Haberfield's cafe strip without the usual weekend chaos. The Inner West rewards the people who wander.

There's something about a long weekend that makes leaving feel more possible than it usually does. A few days to let the rhythm of somewhere else take over. These four drives are all under three hours from the Inner West, and all better in autumn than they are in summer.

The Illawarra Escarpment and Kiama: 1 to 1.5 hours south. Take the Grand Pacific Drive south via the Sea Cliff Bridge, stop at Thirroul or Austinmer for what might be one of the last swims of the season, and end up in Kiama for the Blowhole and the foreshore. The cooler air makes the clifftop walks feel effortless. No accommodation needed and you'll be home by dinner.

Bowral then Kangaroo Valley: 1.5 to 2 hours south. This is the one. Start in Bowral on Easter Saturday. The Easter Festival at Centennial Vineyards is on all day with live music, food trucks and local wine among the autumn vines, and entry is free. From Bowral, drop down through Robertson and stop at Fitzroy Falls before descending into the valley. In April, the light through the escarpment is something else. Warm and low and golden in a way that makes you want to stay longer than you planned. In the valley itself: coffee and an almond croissant at The General Cafe, a paddle on the Shoalhaven River, and a long afternoon at The Friendly Inn, a heritage pub dating back to 1897 with a beer garden that looks straight out across the escarpment. If you can stay overnight, do it. The valley has a completely different quality once the day trippers leave and it quiets down.

Hunter Valley, Pokolbin: 2 to 2.5 hours north. Easter falls right in the middle of the Hunter Valley Harvest Festival, a three-month celebration running March through May. The vines turn gold and copper in April, the big reds are drinking beautifully, and cellar doors with open fires and seasonal menus are exactly the right call when the temperature drops. Saddler's Creek has Blues on the Grass on Easter Saturday with live music, and multiple wineries across Pokolbin are running chocolate and wine pairings all weekend. Book accommodation ahead as it fills up fast.

Port Stephens, Nelson Bay: 2.5 hours north. Calm, protected beaches, the Stockton Sand Dunes (the largest moving sand dunes in the Southern Hemisphere), dolphin watching and a coastal town that hasn't been over-developed. Cooler temperatures make the dune activities and headland walks far more enjoyable than in the summer heat. Book early as it's one of the most popular Easter destinations in NSW. Start planning at portstephens.org.au.

*Clocks go back one hour at 3am on Easter Sunday (5 April), end of daylight saving.

One rule worth repeating: all bottle shops are closed by law on Good Friday. Buy Thursday.

Guide correct at time of publishing. Venue hours may change. Check Instagram stories and Google listings in the days before the long weekend.