Limelight Bar

[Guest]

 

In the Pong, when I visit, I stop by the Crown Royal in Pat2 for non rushed conversation with the ladies and attendant working expats. When they do offer music, it is usually a low key trio or quartet.

 

Snip:

 

"The question now is if there is any chance to find a Limelight style place to hang out - to have fun and live out our hedonism without the sleeze and at least on the surface not being branded as a "monger" (I would say that nobody at Limelight thought of himself in this way, which no doubt reflected a significant degree of self delusion)."

[Pom Michael]

Limelight was the Go-go bar (to use the term loosely actually in the final years) - the afterhours place was called Peppermint if I remember correctly.

 

Now, all the Pattaya people will see the connection between the new Peppermint Go-Go and the old Limelight Go-Go on Walking Street!

 

"Touch Bar" - where was that located? Was it above Safari?

[The_Munchmaster]

carygrant said: Found this old thread. Yes, Limelight was a great bar and became my regular hangout from the mid to late eighties.

Good to hear from someone else who has fond memories of what IMHO is the best gogo bar ever.

[Guest]

The_Munchmaster said:

... the best gogo bar ever.

 

Agree and that is one of the reasons - apart from nostalgia - that I revived your thread: is there anything to learn in order to bring back the sanuk factor to Bangkok night life scene? The obvious lesson from Limelight is that the personal quality of the manager is the decisive factor. He got almost everything right, from his own appearance of welcoming, relaxed "civility" over to his perfectly matching mamasan, a

Chinese looking elegant lady (quite sexy in my view) in her early thirties (1985/86), the choice of decor and girls of course and not least the choice of DJ. His choce of music, contemporary chic urban pop from New Order, Journey, TheCure, Pet Shop Boys etc contributed a lot to the atmosphere of the bar. Which was distinctly "sexy" buy the way, after all it was located in Pat Pong.

 

Well the whole scene has changed and the typical male tourist coming to Thailand now, carrying the sex version of Consumer Report in one hand and his ATM card in the other - and even some expats here - don't seem to care much for sanuk, they just want to find a meat market in the bar (and the plainest, dullest, most repetitive possible music noise). Todays managers' idea of sanuk are the ridiculous and endlessly boring soap "shows" in some of the bars today, something which would be completely out of style in Limelight .

 

So the operative conclusion is, despite my previous call for a more creative entrepreneurship: there is probably no market for a reborn Limelight on today's bar scene.

[Flashermac]

Ah, the Limelight ... sigh. I was told it had German ownership, back when was in publishing in the '80s. Never met the manager, but the place had class. It was somewhere you could actually take a GTG without her getting freaked out too much.

 

The dancers were gorgeous -- and while not nude were hot as hell. Anyone remember those cut off t-shirts they wore for tops? Every now and then you'd get a glimpse of the undersides of their boobs, which was definitely more erotic than if they'd danced topless.

 

The bar was well laid out, the dancers top notch and the prices reasonable.

 

Here is what I wrote about it in a nightlife guide in 1989:

 

"A combination nightclub and go-go bar, the Limelight is unique in Patpong. There are no special 'shows', though the dancers' costumes can be quite miniscule. If you have never been to a Patpong go-go bar, the Limelight can provide an appropriate introduction to more exciting things to come.

 

"Hours: 5pm - 1.30am (happy hour 7pm - 8pm)

 

"Damage: Gin and tonic 55 baht, beer 50 baht, soft drinks 35 baht (happy hour two drinks for price of one)"

 

... Now I think I'll go and cry at what they've done to the city I loved back then.

[Guest]

Flashermac said:

 

... Now I think I'll go and cry at what they've done to the city I loved back then.

 

I think many share this nostalgia.

 

Btw I meant the owner when talked about the management of the bar.

I hope he reads this elegy over a lost Vergangenheit:" Gutes Bier, anständige Musik und reizende Frauen" was his receipt as he would put it in his own language. Not "reizende Musik und anständige Frauen" for heavens sake!

[Flashermac]

I can't really think of any place like it nowadays, not even the Soi 33 bars. As I said, it was unique.

 

Patpong used to be a fun place in the '80s. Now I almost never go near it. Did you catch the "chorus girl" line ups each night at the Safari Bar? About a dozen topless dancers kicking in unison ...

 

Lipstick was great for the all nude dancers and had the first shower show in Bangkok. It became so popular that the owners -- American educated Thais -- had to add a bathtub show to the older Fire Cat. Wildest of all was that the manager was an ex-cop!

 

Mickey, ex-owner of Riffiffi, told me that back then the girls would come to the bars asking for a job. Nowadays, there are so many bars that the owners have to take whatever they can get -- thus the numerous piggies and zombies.

[Guest]

"I can't really think of any place like it nowadays, not even the Soi 33 bars. As I said, it was unique."

 

Soi 33 bars are great but too "static" to match the Limelight sanuk level. The Office bar, a favourite of mine, has some serious flaws, such as the big screens showing rugby matches, a definitive no-no in my ideal bar, though on the plus side it has no pool tables. Attract the wrong type of male clientele and are distracting from the fun in the bar (althought the rugby matches do have their unintended entertainment value when a pack of beefy guys suddenly fall into a heap, seemingly engaging in some weird homoerotic group activity...)-

 

I would vote for something like the "Motown" bar in Roppongi, Tokyo - anybody been there?

[The_Munchmaster]

carygrant said: So the operative conclusion is, despite my previous call for a more creative entrepreneurship: there is probably no market for a reborn Limelight on today's bar scene.

While I would agree that there is currently no bar that can compare to what Limelight was I do think that a reborn Limelight would be very successfull. There are plenty of resident expats and some visitors who would frequent such a place regularly. The problems would be finding girls of the same quality (sexy lookers who dance) with similar attitude and keeping the undesireable farangs out.

[khwaimaisabai]

The_Munchmaster said:

......and keeping the undesireable farangs out.

Hi munch,

Well, soi 33 would be a good location for your new bar and to keep the undesirable farangs out, just charge high prices. Those at the lower end of the desirability scale are rarely seen in soi 33 for that reason, I suspect.

As for the girls - that would be the real challenge.

khwai