Pattaya Nightlife News and Reviews

We are up and running. We have had a couple of days the whip the staff into shape and its time to get serious.

We will be running two special promotions starting this Monday (28 April).

THE WHAT! NO FREELANCERS DISCOUNT.

We are new. It's going to take a while for the girls to find out about us. We need your help to bring them in and we don't expect you to do this onerous work for nothing. Bring your own freelancer (BYOF) and you will get an immediate 100 baht discount off your order. At our prices that means you could have two bottled beers and pay absolutely nothing. No restrictions, no conditions. Please ask for the FREELANCER DISCOUNT when ordering. Bring your own and drink for free!!! This promotion runs from now till the end of May.

THE HALF PRICE BARFINE PROMOTION.

We do not have barfines, however if you come to the Pattaya Beer Garden and there are no girls to your liking, why not barfine one of the 100s of honeys in the beer bars in front of us. There are plenty to choose from and I've noticed some real cuties there this week. If you do, we will pay half the barfine. Bring her into the Pattaya Beer Garden and 150 baht of free drinking is yours. That's three bottles of beer at our prices or a full meal. Two meals if you order some of the Thai dishes. All for free. One hundred and fifty baht off your bill just for barfining a cutie from next door. This promotion runs from now till the end of May. Please ask for the BARFINE DISCOUNT when ordering.

You can not combine two offers but you can choose which one you want if you qualify for more than one. Thai staff can be a bit slow when it comes to understanding such promotions. Please state clearly to your waitress which promotion you want.

MEET THE NEW FREELANCERS

Every day from Monday we will be introducing new girls to the bar. We have a team of Thai guys who will be bringing in groups of 10 freelancers at a time to have a look at the place. We will be offering them free Somtum and a small financial inducement to just have a look.

They will be arriving each afternoon between 3 pm and 5 pm and then again between 9 pm and 11pm each night. It will help us immensely if there are some guys in the bar for them to check out as well. For helping us by being in the bar at these times, we will be offering 30 baht drinks for each of these two hour session. That's 30 baht for soft drinks, draught beer, bottled beer, and all spirits. No restrictions at all. You don't even have to ask. Just order a drink at these two times and you bill will be 30 baht per drink.

When each group of freelancers arrives, they will be given a brief introduction to the bar and the way it works and then served their free Som Tum. Feel free to wander over and say Hi or in the finest Beer Garden tradition, just smile at one you like and I'm sure she will be by your side in an instant. You could even buy her a drink if you like. It's only going to cost you 30 baht.

The Soi 8 beer bars in front of the old Prince Hotel are about to be demolished to make way for a new complex (to be known as Baron complex) which will have around 20 new beer bars and 2 Disco / GoGo bars. There will be one sound system for the whole complex and hopefully security to keep out vendors.

Work will begin on this on May 1st. So the last date of trading for Hammer's Cherry Bar is the 30th April. The new complex will open in a month or two's time.

Hammer will relocate his staff and girls to a new bar taking over from The Butterfly Bar. This is located on Beach Road between Soi 13 and Soi 13/1 (Soi Yamato). It is opposite the Right Spot and next to the Scandanavian Bar.

It will open on May 1st. The official opening party for Cherry Bar 2 will be on the 5th May to coincide with manager Nam's  birthday.

A new premium beer is to be launched in Thailand. Under the brand Federbräu Thai Beverage, owner of Chang beer, is launching a beer it's labeling as premium all around.

Federbräu will be the only beer distributed in Thailand which strictly adheres to Germany's legendary Reinheitsgebot Purity Law of 1516, which stipulates that only the natural ingredients of barley-malt, hops, yeast and brewing water are used in the brewing process.

From the blurb: Federbräu is a premium blond beer made to a traditional European style recipe from all natural ingredients. The name Federbräu translates from the German as feather brew.

The beer has an alcohol content of 4.7%.

It is good to report big improvements in the bar which has now changed hands. Noted Pattaya forum member, Las Vegas Paul, is now in charge.

The bar now has about 20 girls and several of them are pretty. They were doing a 5 song dance rota with a range of dress from nothing to bikini clad.

The dancing is punctuated by shows and there is the obligatory Jacuzzi girl.

There is also the diversion of the girls swimming in the fish tank. There is a tipping scheme to encourage the girls to dive for coins.

And best of all the girls make for very friendly hostesses with lots of hands on fun on offer.

The gogo also offers very reasonable pricing on drinks and bar fines etc.

On my recent trip I went to the Intira Bar on Second Rd near Soi 2. Lots of attractive girls here who don't hassle you for drinks but who respond when approached. It was one of my favourite bars at this end of town.

Sanuk Bar is a beer bar on Second Road at the top of Soi 3. The girls here are nothing to write home about but what they lack in the looks department they make up for in the friendliness of their attitude. They never seemed to have too many customers so any visitor is made welcome.

The Classroom Bar in Soi 2 opposite the Go-Go of the same name is a large semi-open bar with a live band and a couple of pool tables.

The service staff are very friendly and it proved a good last stop on my way back to the hotel late at night or in the early hours. Some nice girls here but it seems more like a place you take a girl to rather than go there to find one.

I last stopped by before nearby Champagne got stung with a 30 day closure. Perhaps they are currently enjoying a few relocated girls/customers. I doubt it though.

Gorkle is always quiet. A lack of girls tends to cause a lack of customers. And a lack of customers tends to cause a lack of girls. It is not as if there is anything badly wrong with the bar. The drinks are reasonable and the staff are friendly. There's no hassle and everything seems well run.

The bench seating is very reminiscent of old wooden school desks and is a little cramped.

I guess that the dancers choose their own dancewear as some of the pants were somewhat larger than a manager/owner would ever pick. There were some girls dancing topless though.

A couple of the old stagers were circulating amongst the customers but the token couple of prettier girls were being somewhat aloof and acting as door bait when they had done their dancing stint.

I always find this an irritating policy. It leads to no customers being well entertained as opposed to a few customers that could otherwise be well entertained.

We Are No 1 is Jomtien's only GoGo

Nothing very much seems to improve at this bar but it seems to keep soldiering on with a smattering of customers.

It would be tempting to think that a business consultant could suggest a few blatantly obvious improvements.

The main problem is that there are simply too many girls dancing and not enough circulating amongst the customers. The girls are simply not pretty enough to entertain as dancers, and there is not any attempt to entertain with nudity or sexy shows either.

The girls also have a habit of plonking themselves down by your side and not shifting if you show no interest. This policy doesn't really allow another girl to try her luck.

On the plus side, the service is good and and there is no hassle whatsoever in the bar. The beer is reasonably priced and they play farang friendly music

Very much a lucky dip this bar, but with the odds stacked against wining.

The bar tends to attract below average girls but this does not preclude a few pretty girls in attendance.

There is a fairly long dance rotation with not really much in the way of naughty stuff. Most of the girls are bikini clad but a couple go topless.

Some of the girls provide hands on fun on your lap but most tend to ignore customers.

Newbies should be very wary. Last time I visited, the mamasang was trying to push a very expensive all-in fee on a besotted newbie.

The big job still waiting some serious action is the Kitchen but now our Chef is on the case I expect that to come together quickly.

I've spoken with a few freelancers about the project and they have all been quite enthusiastic about the new venue. We have some great promotions ready to launch to help drag them in and introduce them to the bar. More on this once the opening is at hand.

Our firm dates for opening our now 20 April soft opening. It could be a little dodgy from a service point of view for the first few days as we work out all the bugs in the system and do some serious staff training. We still look good for the official opening party on the 29th April.

The Long Tail Bar is a beer bar in Jomtien on Thappraya Road, just a few meters from the beach

This is a completely non-descript bar with a stable of long-in-the-tooth ladies.

Its biggest drawback is the noise. This is generated by the adjacent bar playing something vaguely resembling music at maximum volume. This made normal conversation at Long Tail nearly impossible. Not sure what the neighbors can do when one decides to be the big bully on the block.

Fortunately, the mamassan at Long Tail has not entered into a Soi-7-style battle of the bands. Rather she has just allowed her stereo to gather dust.

All boils down to a place I will not likely be seen in again!

A new disco and coyote bar has opened at the Soi 8 venue that was previously Oasis Coyote in the old Prince Hotel.

I was passing by way too early but I thought I would pop in to take a look anyway.

It was a total disaster with in the first minute of walking in. First of all they had opened the bar before there was any conceivable entertainment. They had not even turned on the music. But I thought I would at least look around and ask the staff about the bar.

Within the first minute, a ladyboy arrived at my table to take my drinks order only to get it wrong. He then thought that he could hang round for a ladyboy drink. His opening conversational gambit was: one drink for me?

Quickly dismissing the unwelcome dancing boy, I asked a service girl about the bar. Apparently it is a disco with some coyote dancing.

The drinks prices are set around the 120-140 baht mark but there is much cheaper happy hour. There are drinks menus on the tables.

The layout of the bar consists of a lounge area with decent seating and then a dancing area with a couple of dancing stages and a prominent stage for the DJ. There were incredibly tacky, wobbling stools dotted around.

Surely the bar will have to improve on the customer experience this early bird received. Otherwise they will just have to rely on the famous brand name to entice a few Pattaya newbies.

As from 7th April all drinks excluding lady drinks and cocktails will be 89b until further notice.

I'm not sure whether it was a temporary problem or else a permanent change, but there was no draft beer available a few days ago.

Sakura Club is located on Walking Street: Soi 15 opposite What's Up

After all you guys asking the beautiful girls of V2O, we have decided to give in to all you handsome men out there. We now have a bar fine policy in place at 500 Baht.

V20 is the ice cold vodka bar on Walking Street: Soi Happy.

Things are not looking good at the Mandarin Club and also at the Mandarin Beer Bar on Soi 6.

Mandarin Club was closed on Sunday evening and is without ladies in attendance on Monday.

However things seemed back to normal on Tuesday

No rumours as yet about what was up.

In response to the nightly run around caused by the recent police enforced early closing:

We have cut the price of bar fines for the next 7 days to a cost of 100 Baht after 2am each night!

Guys at this price the bar makes NOTHING but we wish to show you that coming to Thailand is not all bad and to start this we are offering you this discount for a limited time.

so please do drop into the bar find your self a girl or 5.

It has also been reported that the police haven't been closing the bars at 2am for a few days now. There seems to be a low music/no outside lights/discreet bins, compromise when bars are allowed to stay open.

A Thai run gogo that inevitably provides a good home for staff who maximise their earnings from relentless hassle of customers.

The latest wheeze they have is for the only pretty girls in the bar to be anchored to within a few paces of the door. They parade around topless such that customers peering around the door get a good eyeful of a pretty girl. If they are convinced then they will shuffle in to find a seat, only to realise that the majority of the girls are second string. As with the pretty girls on scouting duty at a beer bar, it seems difficult to get the door decoration girls to sit with a customer.

The bar isn't entirely without merits though, as hands on fun is readily available here.

However the chances of finding both a pretty girl and one who doesn't hassle too much, make for a rare entertaining visit.

TQ2 has been round for a fair while and for most of that time it has been a bar for guys, mostly American, to get together for a chat. The gogo girls were a bit superfluous and tended to get ignored. And as a result, the only girls who put up with the bar, were those who justified being ignored.

More recently the management had a change of heart over the gogo side of the business and got manager Russ to kick it into shape. This effort was very successful and brought TQ2 back onto the gogo map.

That was until Russ was fired in February 2008.

The current state is that the gogo side is slipping into bad old ways but there are still plenty of girls and some of them are pretty and willing.

However they seemed to have lost interest in a sexy dancing show. Bikinis are again the order of the day and even these are tending to give way to bras and shorts.

I still enjoyed the visit though, especially when an old friend popped onto my lap.

After what seems an eternity the fourth edition of Pattaya by Night magazine is finally available.

As with the third edition, it runs to 56 pages, filled with glossy colour pictures of gogo ladies from the very best dens in Fun Town.

The layout has had a professional graphic artist do things to the pages which make this edition a real standout and the best so far.

The price remains the same, at 150 baht.

Dave the Rave reports that Catz is up for sale.

Meanwhile the closure of Ocean 10 maybe a temporary affair for renovation (that was quick). The band may relocate to Hammer Disco which will re-open soon complete with an escalator.

The bar always seems popular. There are plenty of pretty girls who dance on a pretty long circuit. Most girls are knickerless under skirts with open blouse. Some wear more and some wear less.

A few customers were being looked after by the girls, but mostly this seems to be  bar for watching rather than interacting.

Small beer glasses mean that the 55 Baht draft price tag is not quite the bargain it appears. But nothing to complain about.

Tips are the usual order of the day to get a closer look at the dancer. But saying that I didn't spot too many customers with a fistful of 20's to give out.

Always good to see a popular but I left it for those that were enjoying and moved on to a more interactive bar.

Pattaya business operators are protesting about the RS Company's attempt to collect a copyright fee for viewing the Euro Football Championship 2008 on their TV screens. The business operators maintain that it constitutes a double collection and they are being taken advantage of.

On 29th March 2008, the RS Company, the copyright owners, made a general announcement that they intend to collect a copyright fee for viewing the Euro Football Championship 2008 from 7 – 29 June. This will affect all public venues nationwide, including hotels, restaurants, local and late night eating place who intend to use the TV football championship broadcasts to attract customers. The copyright fees range from Bt2,000 to 5,000 for the whole tournament. Violators will be prosecuted and jailed from 6 months to 4 years or fined from Bt100,000 – 800,000 baht. The business operators are complaining that this will have a direct impact on businesses nationwide, but especially on the 500 businesses affected around Pattaya, and they regard the copyright fee as totally unacceptable.

One Pattaya business operator, Akarawit Thephasit, the owner of Heineken Draft Beer Court, located in front of Big C, North Pattaya, which attracts many Thai and foreigner customers, echoing the views of many of his fellow owners, protested that this was effectively a double fee as they had already paid the copyright fee on Thai and foreign music already and the practice was unfair. However, he is afraid that if a regulation act is instituted, compliance will be mandatory and violators will be prosecuted.