Hard cell: Melbourne prison bar where patrons and staff dress as inmates described as ‘grotesque’

Alcotraz, scheduled to open in Melbourne in June, aims to give visitors ‘the unique opportunity to immerse themselves in a fictitious, Hollywood-like narrative’. Photograph: Alcotraz

It’s advertised as an “immersive cocktail experience like no other” in which bar staff cosplay as prison inmates, actors play crooked guards, and the patrons don orange jumpsuits to drink in mock prison cells.

But the bar, which is scheduled to open in Melbourne in June, has been condemned by a charity as a “disturbingly” insensitive concept that capitalises on suffering.