Dentist’s chairs, $10 drinks, and being handcuffed to bars. Mark Tjhung takes you back – way back – to Hong Kong’s raucous nineties bar scene

Remember laserdiscs? How about the words ‘radical’ and ‘psych’? Although difficult to conceive now, there was a time before iPods, when chunky CD walkmans accompanied us everywhere; when mobile phones were rare (and unwieldy) technological wonders; when Central Plaza reigned supreme over the Hong Kong skyline, the ‘Four Heavenly Kings of Cantopop’ ruled music, Ekin Cheng and Young and Dangerous wowed cinema audiences, and Chris Patten arrived to take charge of the Fragrant Harbour. It was called the nineties. And back then – before anyone had ever heard of partying in SoHo, NoHo or on Wyndham Street, and when Lan Kwai Fong was the new kid on the block – the city’s drinking scene was out of control.

“It was all about getting shit-faced as fast as possible. It was far more madcap back then,” says Lee Thomas, former manager of Joe Bananas and the now defunct Rick’s Café. “Those were the party years of Hong Kong,” agrees Calvin Craig, owner of the erstwhile Scotties bar in Lan Kwai Fong.

Whether you were part of the mid-nineties rave scene who partied at Bar City and chilled out at CE Top, a Wan Chai loyalist who never strayed far from the infamous food belt (Joe Bananas, Strawberries, and the Big Apple), or part of the Central crew who clung to the new and shiny Alan Zeman-forged slopes of LKF, the times were good.
Now, we’re taking you back... way back. From the vague memories of people whose brain cells were obliterated during this pre- and post-handover period, we’ve compiled a selection of iconic 1990s bars that didn’t survive to see 2009, taking you on a trip into the debaucherous past. So jump into the Time Out DeLorean and visit those places you know you loved – even if you may not want to admit to having partied there.

Rick’s Café circa 1986-2001
“It looked like shit, it played cheesy music, the toilets stunk and it was claustrophobic. But it was the best bar in Hong Kong at the time. Every night was massive,” says Lee Thomas, now Operations Manager at Beijing Club. This basement on Tsim Sha Tsui’s Hart Avenue, which housed a long bar and tacky cane furniture, was the peninsula’s biggest party spot in the second half of the 1990s, attracting a 95 per cent Chinese crowd that went hard at it every night of the week. “It was mad, day in, day out,” says Thomas. “I remember having a queue of 100 on a Sunday night!” One old school partier, who did not want to be named, not only remembers Rick’s Café being out of control, but also that it served a purpose: “It wasn’t one of those places that you were proud to tell people you’d been to. It was a meat market.” After 15 years of serving up trays packed with 96 shooters, licensing problems forced Rick’s to move to Kimberley Avenue. “It was never the same,” says Thomas. The phenomenon that was Rick’s Café was over.

The China Jump circa 1992-2000
Back in 1996, the China Jump made international headlines as photos surfaced of Paul Gascoigne, the England football legend, having liquor poured down his throat in the infamous Jump dentist chair. Locally, however, the pub and the dentist chair had achieved notoriety long before. Strangely hidden away in Causeway Bay Plaza II, The China Jump was a dim, low-ceilinged bar/club that had a reputation for pushing the envelope, summed up best by the Multiple Screaming Orgasms. “The bartender would mix your drink in his pants and the girl would lie on the bar hand cuffed to a tap. He would put the glass between her legs, jump up and pour the drink in the glass. The DJ would be playing Cream by Prince while all this was happening,” says Paula Way-James, self-confessed mad partier at the time. “It was the perfect bar for the perfect time. Everyone had money and just wanted to get slaughtered…Wednesday’s were the biggest,” says Gary Stokes, a former bar manager at The China Jump, pourer of that famous Gascoigne shot and now manager of Hemingway’s by the Bay. Wednesday nights were big because it was Ladies’ Night, possibly the first Hong Kong incarnation of the now all-too-common phenomenon. It’s got a lot to answer for.

Scotties circa 1980s-1996
What did you used to do on Monday nights? In all likelihood, if you were a partier during the late 1980s and early 1990s, your Monday nights were boozed filled. Why? Because of Scotties’ Standard Chartered Mondays. A mere $10 would get you your pick of the bar, provided you paid with a Standard Chartered bill. The dim, gritty boozing den, now Kyoto Joe in LKF, used to offer the booziest start to the week in town, packing out the small dance floor. Of course, it made Standard Chartered notes worth their weight in gold, with people saving them up all week. One entrepreneurial old lady even used to sell $90 worth of Standard Chartered notes for $100 in front of the bar). Calvin Craig, the owner, brags that no one’s been able to replicate the bar since. “It was for the down and outs. If you were a player or a party animal, Scotties opened its heart to you. It was for the real people. If you wanted to be arty farty, you could go to California,” he says proudly. Things changed, however, after the 1992 New Year’s tragedy in LKF, with regulations and rents becoming prohibitive for some owners. Scotties was one of the casualties, and the value of Standard Chartered $10 bills took a nose dive.

Graffiti circa late 1980s-1995
Walking through the swarm of partying revelers on a Friday and Saturday night, it’s difficult to imagine Lan Kwai Fong being virtually bar-free. But when Graffiti started up, this was pretty much the reality, being one of the first drinking establishments to venture into LKF. “I’m pretty sure it was Club 97, California and then Graffiti,” hazily remembers Richard Feldman, a former manager of Graffiti, and now chairman of bar and restaurant business the Mimosa Group. Graffiti comprised the two floors now housing Bar George and Bulldog’s. “They’d give you crayons to draw on the white tablecloths, that’s why it was called Graffiti,” says one former regular. Popular among overseas-born Chinese, as well as a smattering of expats and the occasional celeb, the bar was long and narrow, with an entrance on both Lan Kwai Fong and D’Aguilar Street. And during New Year’s, you could cut through the bar to shortcut the circling masses. Many a New Year reveler surely wishes Graffiti was still there.

Yelts Inn circa 1993-2000
Where La Bodega now lies on D’Aguilar Street once stood a tongue-in-cheek dig at the old Soviet regime. Yelts Inn was all about Russian-inspired décor, with the hammer and sickle planted firmly at the centre of the doorway and other piss-take elements such as huge papier-mâché rockets dangling overhead and mock party propaganda on the walls. A hangout for the indie crowd – particularly Lamma-ites, hippies and the backpackers who rolled through in the mid-to late nineties – Yelts Inn was busier than a Moscow bread queue most of the time. “I remember partying all night long [there], where all the blokes wore Rockport boots and it would take you hours to get from the door to the bar,” says Richard Broadhurst, mainstay on the scene at the time.

Oscar’s circa 1993-2003
Oscar’s may not be around anymore, but its legacy on Hong Kong’s bar scene is indelible. Narrow, bright and mainly white on the inside, Oscar’s real claim to fame was what was going on outside. “Previous bars in Lan Kwai Fong had excluded the street with ‘closed-off’ shop fronts. We recognised that the area lacked a street culture and that people wanted to ‘see and be seen’,” says one of the former owners, Nigel Bacon. “Oscar’s went a long way to making Lan Kwai Fong what it is today,” says Toby Cooper, former Oscar’s manager and now owner of The Globe. After its establishment, the loyal suits that congregated at Oscar’s night after night would spill out onto the LKF sidewalk (the very bricks that now accommodate the ‘Club 7-Eleven’ drinkers), and other bars followed, creating the beginnings of the atmosphere that the area is renowned for today and transforming the way Hongkongers drink forever.

Petticoat Lane circa 1994-2003
As hard as it may be to believe now, the dank abandoned alleyway near Ivan the Kozak off Cochrane Street used to be home to one of the city’s coolest bars. With its scarlet baroque decor adorned with eclectic works of art, Petticoat Lane was an integral part of this once vibrant lane, together with restaurants The Pavilion and El Pomposo. Petticoat was one of the first bars in Central to move away from Lan Kwai Fong, tapping into the demand for something quieter and out of the way. Jamie Higgins, general manager of The 97 Group, recalls Petticoat bringing in a vast range of people “from the very affluent, to the people who didn’t want to be seen in Lan Kwai Fong because they were having an affair. It kind of kicked off the whole SoHo thing,” he says. Sadly, on November 30, 2003, it shut its doors: a victim of a planned re-development that never eventuated. “It was a one off, original classic that’s still really missed,” says Higgins. “People keep asking me ‘when is it coming back?’ But it’s really hard to find a place in Central with that much character. But we’re always on the lookout.”

Flying Pig circa 1994-2000
The Flying Pig wasn’t the classiest of places – in a good way. Above where Mes Amis now dominates, the Pig used to fill up with a mixed crowd – from raucous rugby boys to Wan Chai expat suits. Its most notable features, which former regulars remember fondly, were the old airline seats ripped from a plane, closely followed by its pool table which once hosted snooker legend Steve Davis. Of course, the cheap drinks that used to fuel massive nights above Lockhart Road were always central to anyone’s Flying Pig experience. And lots of silly dancing.

Godown circa 1960s-1998
“In its prime, the Godown was the place for expats to go,” says Portia Coffey, a long-time employee of the bar. The famous regularly descended on the Godown too, with the likes of Madonna, Sir Anthony Hopkins, Pierce Brosnan, Terry Wogan, and countless rugby players getting their partying and alcoholic fix when they rolled through town. Starting in the basement of Sutherland House, the Godown moved several times, firstly to Admiralty and then back to Central in the basement of the Furama Hotel. “[The original Godown] was dark and dingy and had a decor of barrels in nets on the ceiling, there was a Long Table where all the regulars hung out,” says Coffey. The famous long table, which would become the platform for regular dancing when the bar turned party venue every night after 10.30pm, was a constant throughout the Godown’s several locations. After several decades serving up drinks to Hongkongers, it finally closed its doors in April 1998.

F-Stop Dates unknown
In the cramped space that now houses Lost in Lan Kwai Fong once stood F-Stop, a narrow little bar with high stools at the entrance and a crammed, spiral staircase leading up to the chilled-out loft. “It was probably the smallest bar in HK but they managed to fit a live band in there at the weekends, plus cheap tequila shots and cute bar maids,” says Janet Lai, regular on the scene during the time. Indeed, the ridiculous $10 shots meant that it was renowned for being a real place to get the night warmed up for all, even for quite a few school kids and under-agers learning to lick, sip, and suck.

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