Fabrika Tbilisi: The Courtyard, Bars, Food and Shops

Fabrika is the old Soviet sewing factory on Ninoshvili Street that became Tbilisi's favorite courtyard: a big hostel, around a dozen bars and cafes, small design shops and murals, all wrapped around one long yard. Walking in is free, and it's where I send friends for their first evening drink across the river. Here's what's inside, what to order, when to go and how to get there.

What is Fabrika Tbilisi?

Fabrika is a hostel, courtyard and creative space in a former Soviet sewing factory in Chughureti, on the Marjanishvili side of the river. In Soviet times the building was the Nino sewing factory, which made women's clothing, and after the Soviet Union fell apart it stood empty for years. The local architecture studio MUA and Adjara Group, the hotel company behind Rooms and Stamba, brought it back, and it opened in July 2016.

They kept the bones of the factory. The long concrete wings, the steel-framed windows and the Soviet bas-relief above the main entrance are all still there, and some of the old machinery pulled out during the renovation came back as furniture and fittings. Early on, the owners invited street artists to paint the grey walls, and the murals became the look of the place.

Today the main building is the hostel, with a lounge and a restaurant on the ground floor. The courtyard behind it is lined on both sides with small bars, cafes and shops, with a coworking space, a creative school and a gallery opening off it. It's one of several converted factories in Tbilisi, and the one that works as a neighborhood hangout rather than a hotel lobby.

Every bar and cafe in the Fabrika courtyard

The lineup changes a little every year, so here is the courtyard as it stands in 2026. Opening times are the venues' own and shift with the season.

The bars at Fabrika

The courtyard is a bar crawl that never needs a taxi. My order on a first visit: wine at Saamuri as the light goes, a cocktail at G.U.M, then whichever bench in the courtyard still has room.

The Fabrika lounge

The lounge on the ground floor of the hostel is open to everyone, not only guests. It's a big room of vintage armchairs, old carpets, leather sofas, plants and exposed pipes, with food and drinks served all day, and it's the easiest place in the city to meet people if you're traveling alone. On cold or wet evenings, when the courtyard empties, this is where the crowd moves. Come for the company and the sofas, and save the serious drinking for the bars outside.

Saamuri

Saamuri is my favorite bar in Fabrika. It's a natural wine bar and shop pouring around 100 wines from about 30 small producers, many of them members of Georgia's Natural Wine Association, and the staff are good at steering you toward something you'd never pick off a shelf. Its own-label blends are the cheaper way in, and there's craft beer, chacha and kombucha for anyone not drinking wine. It opens at 17:00 on weekdays and 14:00 at weekends.

Order an amber wine by the glass if you've never had one: the skin-contact whites fermented in clay qvevri are what Georgian natural wine is known for, and Saamuri usually has one on tap. The bar also hosts a wine salon every May, a good reason to plan a spring trip, and it holds its own against the best wine bars in Tbilisi across the river.

G.U.M

G.U.M is the courtyard's proper cocktail bar, a small room with a curved white counter and a glowing back bar. The menu sticks to classics done well, like a Tom Collins, a Negroni Sbagliato and a smoked maple Old Fashioned, with coffee for the afternoon crowd. Cocktails run 20 to 29 GEL, a step above the courtyard average, and you can taste why. It opens at 18:00 Monday to Wednesday and at 13:00 Thursday to Sunday, and stays open past midnight.

It's the bar I'd pick for a date, or for a quieter drink before the courtyard gets loud. If cocktails are the plan for the whole night, most of the cocktail bars in Tbilisi worth crossing town for sit in Sololaki, a short Bolt ride away.

Camora

Camora is the courtyard bar with live local musicians on some nights, which makes it the place to head when you hear a band from across the yard. It's a casual spot for a beer and whatever is playing rather than a destination for its drinks list. The music nights change from week to week, so it's a bar to check as you walk in rather than one to plan an evening around.

Tsibakha Game Club

Tsibakha is a board game bar with more than 150 games, from chess and backgammon to long strategy games and big multiplayer party games, with food and drinks brought to the table. It's the best rainy-evening option in Fabrika and a good pick for groups who would rather play than shout over the courtyard. Four friends and a stack of games can lose a whole evening here.

Where to eat at Fabrika

Fabrika is better for a casual meal than a big Georgian dinner. Most of the food is sandwiches, pizza, burgers and brunch, and the one proper restaurant is in the hostel building. For a long Georgian feast, walk 5 minutes to Aghmashenebeli Avenue.

FARM

FARM is the restaurant and wine bar on the hostel's ground floor, serving modern Georgian food from an open kitchen, with a long communal table down the room. The wine list is the strong suit, with plenty by the glass, and there are good vegetarian dishes, a tomato salad and a pavlova that reviewers keep coming back to. Dinner service starts at 14:00 and runs until 23:00, or 1 am on Friday and Saturday.

In the morning the same room does the breakfast buffet, 8:00 to 12:00 for about 40 GEL, and walk-ins are welcome. It's a big spread of pastries, bread, yogurt and fruit, cheese and salami, with omelets and pancakes made to order. I'd come for the wine at night and the buffet in the morning; the dinner plates can promise more than they deliver.

Tone

Tone bakes bread in a traditional clay oven every morning and turns it into sandwiches, with chicken, salmon and pate the favorites, plus soups and cheese platters and wine or a spritz on the side. Come between 10:00 and 10:30 and you can watch the bread go into the oven. Portions are on the small side, so treat it as lunch or a snack rather than dinner. It opens at 11:00 and runs until midnight.

Popolo

Popolo, which took over the space from Farina, makes wood-fired Italian pizza that reaches the table in under 15 minutes, plus sandwiches and salads. The quattro formaggi and the diavola get the most love, the crust is thin and crisp, and there's a decent craft beer list. It opens at 12:00 and closes after midnight, so it doubles as the late slice on the way home.

Londa

Londa is the newest cafe in the courtyard and the best one for brunch, serving breakfast until 14:00 with seating inside and out. The eggs Benedict, the matcha and the chicken burgers are what people order, and portions are generous. Later in the day it switches to starters, sandwiches and mains, and it stays open until midnight, 2 am on Friday and Saturday. Opening at 10:00, it's the brunch spot in Tbilisi I'd build a Chughureti morning around.

Moulin Électrique

Moulin Électrique is the second branch of the cafe on Kote Abkhazi Street in Old Tbilisi, serving European and Georgian dishes from 10:30 until 1 am every day. Its terrace has some of the best-placed tables in the courtyard. The puff pastry khachapuri is the local favorite and the thing to order. Reviews of the rest of the menu and of the service are mixed, so I treat it as a khachapuri-and-coffee stop rather than a dinner.

PIPES Burger Joint

PIPES makes handmade gourmet burgers with the classic sides, and it's the courtyard's most reliable fill-up. It opens at 11:00 (12:00 on Saturday) and serves until midnight, past 1 am on Friday and Saturday, which makes it the late option while the bars are still going. A cheeseburger and fries at a courtyard table is a very good 22:00 dinner.

Bar Bagel

Bar Bagel is the newest food stop, with fresh bagels, six sandwich fillings and plain bagels with dips. It's a quick breakfast or lunch to carry to a bench in the courtyard, and the pick over the sit-down places when you're between sights and only have half an hour.

Shops, studios and street art at Fabrika

The shops ring the courtyard and are small, independent and mostly Georgian. Come before the evening crowd if you want to browse in peace.

Vodkast is probably the only vinyl shop in Tbilisi, and Shavikata sells never-worn clothes from the factory's own Soviet-era stock, which is about the best souvenir with a story you'll find in the city. Inbloom's ceramics are a good modern alternative to the usual Georgian souvenirs.

The murals are the reason a lot of people come in daylight. The facade and the courtyard walls are covered, the big courtyard pieces get repainted every year or two, and the stairwells and the back courtyard hold rougher, older work that most visitors walk straight past. Keep going beyond the last cafe terrace into the side wings. With so much in one place, Fabrika is the easiest stop on any street art walk in Tbilisi.

Two creative spaces open off the courtyard too. The Creative Education Studio, founded by composer and musician Nastia Sartania, runs courses in design, audio and video production, music and photography and has taught more than 900 students. Project Space is Fabrika's gallery, showing everything from local solo shows to joint projects with galleries and institutions, and its openings are a good free evening.

Staying and working at Fabrika

Fabrika Hostel & Suites is the largest hostel in the region, with 75 rooms over two floors joined by a red staircase: five mixed dorms, one women-only dorm, private doubles and twins, and apartment-style suites. The cheapest dorm bed, in a 12-bed room, costs about 32 to 35 GEL a night, a double with a shared bathroom about 145 to 175 GEL, and an ensuite double about 185 to 210 GEL outside the busiest weekends. Breakfast is an extra unless your rate includes it. It tops most lists of the best hostels in Tbilisi because it's social without being a party hostel, and the rooms have high ceilings and big factory windows.

The coworking space, run by Impact Hub, opens off the courtyard, with day passes for about 40 GEL, weekly and monthly passes, private offices and phone booths. On weekdays it fills by about 10:00, so arrive early if you want a desk. Remote workers in town for a few days also use the lounge, which has plenty of seats and sockets.

Events at Fabrika

Something happens in the courtyard most weeks. There are markets and outdoor events all year, a Christmas Fair that's the highlight of the winter, exhibitions at Project Space, morning yoga, outdoor movie nights and workshops. In summer, live music and buskers fill the courtyard on Friday and Saturday evenings, and DJs play from Thursday.

Fabrika announces its program on its Facebook and Instagram pages rather than far in advance, so check them in the week you're in town. Its summer weekends are one of the easiest ways to catch live music in Tbilisi without a ticket, a booking or a dress code.

When to go to Fabrika

Fabrika has two lives. From about 10:00 until 20:00 it's a place to eat, drink coffee and work on a laptop; after 20:00 it turns into one of the busiest night spots in the city.

Spring and autumn are my favorite seasons here, when the evenings are warm enough to sit outside and the courtyard is lively without being a crush. In July and August come after the heat breaks, and in winter the crowd moves indoors to the lounge, FARM and the game club. For a lot of people Fabrika is where a night of Tbilisi nightlife starts: a couple of drinks in the courtyard, then on to Aghmashenebeli Avenue or a club.

What Fabrika costs

Fabrika isn't the cheapest place to drink in Tbilisi; you pay a little extra for the setting. Prices sit a step above the ordinary bars of the neighborhood and below Shardeni Street in the Old Town, where cocktails run 20 to 30 GEL.

Eating on Aghmashenebeli Avenue first and drinking at Fabrika after is the better-value way to do a night here.

How to get to Fabrika

Fabrika is at 8 Egnate Ninoshvili Street in Chughureti, on the left bank of the river, a few blocks from Marjanishvili metro and Aghmashenebeli Avenue. The gate is an arch covered in street art, so you can't miss it.

The Tbilisi metro is the simplest way there from the center: Marjanishvili station is about 600 m from the gate, and a ride costs 1 GEL on a Metromoney card. Coming back late, use a ride-hailing app; the taxis in Tbilisi you order through Bolt cost a fraction of what the drivers waiting outside bars ask.

Near Fabrika: where to go next

Fabrika is the easiest way into Chughureti, and the streets around it are worth an extra hour before or after.

Aghmashenebeli Avenue, 3 minutes' walk: the pedestrian stretch is lined with restaurants, coffee shops and bars, easy to hop between, and it's where I'd eat before a Fabrika evening.

Khash-Khash, 33 Mazniashvili Street, an easy walk: big, hand-wrapped khinkali, natural wine and chacha, open until 2 am, so it works for dinner or a late plate after the courtyard.

The Dezerter Bazaar, about 10 minutes on foot: the Dezerter Bazaar is the city's big produce market for fruit, cheese and spices, and best in the morning.

The Art Palace, about 5 minutes on foot: Tbilisi's museum of theater, music and film, 10 GEL and closed on Mondays.

Barbarestan, 132 Aghmashenebeli Avenue: the dinner reservation to make on this side of the river. It cooks recipes from a 19th-century Georgian cookbook, with dishes like pumpkin patties, cherry soup with mint and qvevri wines to match, and Georgian music on Saturday evenings. It's full most nights, so book well ahead. It sits near the top of my list of the best restaurants in Tbilisi, and it's a 5-minute walk from the Fabrika gate.

Is Fabrika worth it?

Yes, for an evening, and for most first-time visitors. It isn't a sight in the way Narikala or the baths are, and some people find it overhyped: service at the busier cafes can be slow, and prices are higher than elsewhere in Chughureti. But no other place in Tbilisi puts this many good bars, a creative crowd and this much street art inside one gate.

Fabrika suits:

• Solo travelers, because the lounge and the courtyard are the easiest places in the city to start a conversation.
• First-timers who want one relaxed night out without planning a bar route.
• Natural wine drinkers, for Saamuri and the FARM wine list.
• Remote workers, for the coworking passes and the daytime cafes.
• Street art and design fans, for the murals and the small shops.

Skip it if:

• You want a quiet, traditional Georgian dinner; book a table on Aghmashenebeli Avenue instead.
• You're after the cheapest drinks in town.
• You hate crowds and you're only free on a summer Saturday night.