The Concept

A bar with a difference has just opened near my house. It’s a “concept” bar. I spent fifteen minutes in it last night and it was an unusual experience, to say the least.

I suppose I should offer my ruminations on the precursors to the “concept” bar before telling you all about it.

In England a few years ago theme pubs were being built all over the place to replace and update the typical good old English boozer. This, I felt, was a great shame, because these old pubs lost a lot of their character. There was something I liked about the old fashioned décor with the stuffing coming out of the seats and the flaky paint, the darts board and the sticky carpet. I suppose I liked the sense of history – these boozers were old and it seemed only right that they appeared old too.

Generations of drinkers had sat on those ancient fraying seats that wrapped themselves around underneath the curves of the windows. The photo on the wall of the pub from the 1800s was a photo of the pub from the 1800s. I liked the idea that the pub contained so many echoes of the past. I used to think about it when I was in them. I used to think about the groups of people who had sat at my table in decades past, filling the place with their laughter and song, just as we were. I used to think of the old chap drinking on his own in the corner, wondering if he was as lonely as he looked, even though he was so close to so much potential company.

For some reason (probably economic), a number of pubs got the bulldozers in, shamelessly erasing the past and replacing it with a very tenuous “theme”. More often than not, the theme in Bristol seemed to be either Australia or sport. Outside the pub would be a sign saying something like “Authentic Australian Experience!” or some other lie. The Australia theme pub constituted a few signed rugby shirts framed on the walls, a surf board or two dotted about the place and expensive, weak Australian lager on tap. You might also get one of those massive American pool tables, too, which made the game far easier and less fun. The sport theme pub also constituted a few signed rugby shirts framed on the walls, a surf board or two dotted about the place and expensive, weak Australian lager on tap. There might be two American pool tables.

Although theme pubs still exist, the breweries, or whoever it is that made the ghastly decision to create them, seem to have moved on. The trend now seems to be towards the “gastro pub”. The remaining old fashioned boozers and some of the theme pubs are being “upgraded” with a new lick of paint, a few candles, low lighting and meals like bangers and mash with a modern twist made from posh pig (a Berkshire, perhaps) and mash with the skins left on the potatoes. Out go the expensive, weak Australian lagers and the pool tables. Out go the scampi fries. In come the expensive Sauvignon Blanc and the sophisticated chat of the ever expanding middle classes. In comes the ubiquitous endive garnish.

My friend Joe and I were at a buffet a few years ago where one of the dishes was brie and grape skewered by cocktail sticks rather than cheddar and pineapple, as is traditional at any self respecting English buffet. “This,” he remarked as he bit into one, “is a New Labour buffet.” And gastro pubs are most definitely New Labour pubs.

The taste may be better, but at what cost? Those faint echoes from the past will resonate more and more thinly until finally they are silenced.

Anyway, enough pretentious claptrap. I’m sure you’re desperate to know what the concept behind this “concept” bar in Singapore was.

The place was called the Eski Bar. It’s a bar which has the temperature turned right down to about 10 degrees, or thereabouts. This might not sound that cold to you, but the temperature in Singapore never falls below about 24 degrees and is usually up around 28-30. It was cold enough for me and my friend to see our breath coming out of our mouths, which is something I haven’t experienced for about 18 months.

This concept is so flawed that stupid doesn't even come close to describing it. I can’t imagine they’ll be open for more than six months. People will do what we did last night: we were in a bar opposite and saw this new bar. We’d heard about it, so thought we’d pop in, you know, to see how cold it was. So we went in for a drink, then left after we’d seen how cold it was. I doubt I’ll ever go back, unless I’m with other people who’ve never been before and who want to see how cold it is.

Even if it's aimed at tourists it's a stupid concept. Most tourists in Singapore are on their way somewhere else, usually somewhere hotter than where they've come from. They aren't going to want to be plunged back into the freezing conditions they've just escaped.

The bar staff all wear coats and hats. They offered us coats as we went in, but I declined, wanting to brave the conditions in just my t shirt. It reminded me of sitting in a beer garden in England on an October night.

The really cold bit was the seat. My backside was numb after a few minutes. The other problem I had was that my glasses steamed up on exit.

The other thing that made it a very brief experience was the member of staff who stood by us the entire time we were drinking our drinks. He was born in Singapore, but was American and was studying at “film school”. His conversation centred around himself and his experiences in “The Big Apple” (he went into a gay bar once by mistake!) and in Brooklyn (once, when a gun was fired down the street he did a runner from the café he was sitting in!).

He proceeded to talk at us for the entire time we were there – probably about fifteen minutes – sounding like a Friends extra – full of “woaaah”s and “Oh my God”s and “I was like”s. We were the only ones in the whole bar until just before we left, when three other people came in, felt how cold it was and left immediately. He was distracted by them, so we took advantage of the break in his conversation and got up to leave.

Bizarrely, we heard very little of what he said because of the constant hum of the air conditioning (or whatever it was that was making the place so cold). I think they may have a problem or two covering their overheads with the cumulative effects of no custom, bar staff that drive the few customers that they have away, coldness, very high overheads in the first place (must cost a fortune in electricity to freeze a place) and a concept that cries “gimmick”.

I got home and told Ella about it. She's never been before and wants to feel how cold it is. I'm going again soon...