I want the naughty nightlife to do well. I really do. Part of why we write candidly about the scene is so that people can judge for themselves what is good and what is bad and potentially steer their biz to the good places, bitch about the bad places and keep others from having a negative experience. In theory maybe the proprietors of places might even read the blog and can listen in on what their customers are saying. I mean it worked with McDonald’s. Like our current post about Baccara from Bison - knowledge is a powerful thing. I also believe that no matter what is said on this blog people are free to retort it, contort it and basically say whatever they damn well please. So with an open mind, some baht and a free evening I decided to check out Cowboy but with the main intention of seeing the new Our Place. I will admit it was a Sunday night but generally I find that a go-go is either good or bad despite the day of the week.
A quick housecleaning note. This comment on the blog recently put me out a little bit and I wanted to make it known that our views are not for sale on this blog. Granted we may walk a fine line with owning bars and writing about the scene but I think we take our lumps along with everyone else. I have seen some growth in blogs recently that are based on paid for reviews or positive advertising placement. Neither of which we do here. Our ad system is in beta right now and we have no decision on what ads are shown. It is based on the content. What and who we write about is chosen by us and our reader submitters. None of this is based on owners or people with businesses asking us to write. I have denied these requests more than a few times. Maybe RRR was making a joke but knowing WW and knowing myself - this post was not influenced by anyone.
So I popped into Our Place and as soon as I sat down I was confused - well actually as soon as I walked in I felt like I was in DeJaVu. Wait no Midnite. Oh shit. Maybe it was Spanky’s. U get the point. Why the hell does someone buy go-gos only to remodel them to make them look like the other go-gos he owns? I think this works against him since the other go-gos are pretty lame thus bringing feeling of lameness as soon as I walk in. Our Place feels exactly like Spanky’s in Nana Plaza. That is a bad thing since Spanky’s sucks. As a customer said the other night - if the guy would put as much money into girls as he does lights he might have a decent go-go.
Needless to stay I soldiered on. The line-up was on the stage without tops and without undies but wearing a see through skirt. It felt promising. I could tell there was a new sound system in the place but for the life of me I don’t understand why it needs to be turned up so loud that not only can I not hear myself think but the poor waitress had no idea what I was saying when I ordered. I love music but usually music chosen by Thai go-go DJ’s turned up as loud as a jet engine is not progress folks. Get a clue.
It happened to be showtime and I was hoping for things to get better. First up was your typical showgirl that no one wants to see naked but who did not get the memo that says overweight and unhappy bargirls should stay full clothed for the collective benefit of the customers. I feel sorry for her actually but what can I do. She did the let me rub oil all over my skin while writhing around to this really lame slow song that the yabaa’d up DJ picked for no apparent reason at all. Oil - yes folks. You need the oil so you can follow the oil show up with the ever popular drip hot candle wax on my body to another equally lame song. Please folks. 2-3 naked girls kissing each other and teasing each other with some hot candle wax might be a show but this is not. Anyway - that was the first show and the only thing good about it was that it finally ended so the fat girl who kept trying to beg a drink off me had to get back to working the pole. Work the pole - not me baby.
A few more songs of the ladies barely dancing and it was time for another show. Quick one about the music. It was rather annoying because every other song was great. Modern pop, a dance tune or a classic song but then they were intermixed with songs straight out of middle eastern appreciation night at Bamboo bar. I just don’t get it. Imagine being on the dance floor and every other song would clear the floor. Your club would go out of business but this is exactly what they did and you could see the girls dancing hated it as well.
Show number 2 was imminent. It consisted of 2 girls. Wait - no. Make that one girl and one ladyboy. Yes that tall girl with the rock hard boobs has worked at Spice Girls, Midnite, DeJaVu and now Our Place. The staff will claim she is not but that is why she never gets totally naked but even funnier was listening to my service girl chat with a dancer regarding who dances better. The Katoey or the girl. I said the Katoey and then they walked away knowing I knew what they were talking about. Of course they later denied she was a Katoey but she is. I know she is cut and all but a female go-go bar should not mix them in unless the bar is willing to admit that she is. Not a big deal but since that was the highlight of the show I was not too impressed with showtime at Our Place. Maybe during the week or with more girls it is better. I will check it out again just to see. What I am wondering here is given the nationality of the owner and the proclivity of the men who frequent soi towelhead to be seen dickering with the ladyboys - if a trend is developing. Just a thought.
So I finished up the show and waited for a couple rotations of the full lineup to see if there were any hotties. Maybe 4 or 5 out of the 20+ girls but in general there were a lot of 6-7s and very little 8s on up. This is the same as all of his bars and seems to be his big issue. Getting good talent. You can have naked shows, topless dancers and lots of nudity but if none of the girls are worth looking at then what is the point. I would rather go to Shark or Baccara with less nudity but at least the girls are cute. Dirty is not fun with ugly girls in my opinion.
So unfortunately this how the go-go scene is going when someone with a lighting background decides to buy up as many go-gos as he can but without thinking about what makes a good go-go. Rumor is he is buying more and remodeling some others. My guess is they will all look same thus making it easier for you to make sure you know which bars to avoid. I had hoped for better. I would love it if his bars rocked and gave some proper competition but somehow I don’t think it is happening. Rumor is he is already contemplating selling Spanky’s in Nana. I can see why. The place is empty all the time and the bummer part is that I used to like Spanky’s but I quit going there as soon as he bought it because I knew he would ruin it. Lights-a-plenty does not maketh a good go-go.
Oh and yes. The evil mamasan seems to be everywhere among his places. Maybe he could start there.
More on the rest of cowboy later…
Thanks for the due diligence.
Yet another bar to avoid.
What was good on Cowboy na?
View all comments by Jack Dawson
About the other place : The comment was a semi-joke, I mean the review sounds like an ad where everything is great and fluffy. But it works ahah : i’ll check the place next WE and I promise i’ll post a comment.
Our place : went there after reading this
“One of the most popular bars in Soi Cowboy at this point in time is Our Place. It was not that long ago it was a place to be avoided, but it’s pumping now!
The new owner brought a new design, new girls, new shows and although one or two look as though they have been copied directly from Angelwitch, it all comes together well. The atmosphere is fun, and Our Place reminds me very much of the bars in, you guessed it, the good old days.”
( stickman site )
RRR review : another mediocre gogo.
Later’
View all comments by RRR
jd - I don’t mind baccara, shark, rawhide, long gun, sheba and playskool. I don’t pull at go-gos so for me it is more about some cute girls, decent shows and a place to hang out.
rrr - glad we cleared it up.
I think the raving was more about the value in the buffet. I enjoy the place myself but have not been in a while since I no longer live on soi but I plan on seeing if the buffet is any good.
very mediocre but so are all of his bars in my opinion.
View all comments by smitty
jd - I think dollhouse has been pretty good as of late also but go early. the hotties tend to get pulled.
View all comments by smitty
Due to the re-model Our Place was my first stop last night. It was not a place I wanted to stop for long.
I spent time at Baccara; lots of sexy and beautiful girls dancing topless upstairs.
I hit Rawhide. The usual collection of A/B/C girls, with full nudity onstage, even early in the evening.
A long stop in Midnite Bar. This is a bar I haven’t spent much time in over the last 12 months or so. Last night the talent on display, dancing topless, was surprisingly strong. I’m not saying the place was loaded with stunners a-la Rainbow4, but it looked like a lot of new girls; a diverse group of tall & short, slender & not-so-slender, and they seemed generally young. I saw at least 4 girls who looked (IMO) like they’d make a great pull. One in particular was short and slender with a glittery, dangling navel piercing. Another was taller, with pale skin and great boobs. It might be time for another look here from more impartial observers since Midnite gets so much bad press along with the rest of the bars in the group. Based on my visit last night, I’d go back. The negative is the price of beer… Heineken 135 baht, and some lady drinks 170 baht. Ouch.
@Smitty & RRR: My comment about Via Vai was definitely a comment on the VALUE of the buffet, rather than a rave for the restaurant in general. It was my first time in there, and for the quality and quantity of food I consumed I would have expected to pay a lot more. Just wanted to share my ‘discovery’ with a wider audience, just like I would if I found a great massage place, or if I found an after-hours bar full of hot uni girls.
View all comments by werewolf
ww - the LD prices at the bars owned by u know who, owner of midnite, appear to be getting right out of hand. I just won’t buy any.
thanks for the note on Via Vai. I assumed it was about the buffet but I also wanted people to know that the things we write about are not ads disguised as content.
View all comments by smitty
ww, smitty : ok case cleared now I just need to post something nice about g-clubs ahah ;-p
Dollhouse is quite ok and the stunners pulled early often reappear around 1am but I hate the way the girls order lady drinks without asking.
View all comments by RRR
rrr - don’t post anything u don’t really mean. I was only using what u said as an example so that people are clear about the blog’s purpose. Nothing meant about you personally.
Someone else mentioned to me this DH mysterious ladydrink thing. I have never had it happen to me but it would be lame indeed.
What happens when u question it?
View all comments by smitty
yeah, i know the comments…i work in publishing, and one of the things we do is an annual awards contest. we take GREAT pains to announce our voting process, and have the results audited by an independent firm. the winners are chosen by our readers–that said, it’s a small market and you can predict the winners in some categories rather easily.
but even so, we get ppl we know joking that those who advertise with us will be “the winners.” and yes, there are publications in our market, and websites in other markets, where that’s the case. u can get free magazines with restaurant reviews and funnily enough, ALL the eateries they review have advertisements on the opposite page, what a coincidence!
so i can understand why some are cynical, and with the anonymity of the Net, people sometimes are quicker to accuse than they would be in person, or more direct about it. seems to come with the territory.
here’s what i can attest to: i do know Smitty, and IMHO he is a person who tells it straight. if he and his partners can figure out a way to earn online revenue, they will, and more power to them. i expect a model that delivers value, without fear or favor. in this vein, i expect that any observations on BKK strip clubs or other venues posted on this blog to be as accurate as possible. as anyone who’s spent any time in Bangkok knows, clubs and scenes change all the time for various reasons: seasons, the activities of the Boys In Brown, politics, the value of the baht, etc. i lived in Bangkok for over a year and you could go into a club and it would be rocking like crazy one night, and deadsville the next week. there are very few “brands” in this field: you could argue that Angelwitch, Eden and Lolita’s are the most successful, but even these “blue chips” of gentlemen’s entertainment have had branches fail (or change names), or their regular patrons have become bored because they don’t change what for them is a winning formula. ironically, these brands survive by word of mouth (and yes, i realize the obvious pun there with regard to Lolita’s, ar ar ar) and don’t advertise.
all this is just my opinion, and as i no longer live in Bangkok, and i don’t go to bars all that often when i visit, i wouldn’t make a very good reviewer. but i would want to know good spots to go if i were in town with some friends to entertain, and i figure the reviews on TFSTM are as good as any. but frankly, if u aren’t thrilled with a strip club, finish yr drink and move to another. and if your sole reason for visiting Thailand is girl-oriented nightlife (and nothing wrong with that), u might want to consider Pattaya, cuz it’s pretty wall-to-wall in that town. Bangkok offers a lot of interesting other diversions, which is another subject…
JtB
View all comments by Jack B
who is this ‘you know who’ your talking about?
sounds like a prick
View all comments by myspace.com/penfold_xxx
my - that would be the owner of the places and I don’t know him - only of him.
View all comments by smitty
does he have a name or an ‘alias’?
i heard someone talking about an ‘arab’ snapping up loadsa places?
puzzles me why so many owners make a hash of running a go-go, also as in this guys case and also the crown grouops case why they are more content to have 4-5 mediocre or worse bars, when they could focus on 2 really buzzing bars - pay the girls higher wages and they’d be packed out
decent music, decent girls, decent decor (not talking shagpile carpet and gold fittings) and well priced drinks - hardly rocket science
why dont the mango boys have a dig at it?
View all comments by myspace.com/penfold_xxx
I dont his name and they call him the arab but I think he is quite well monied and seems to want to get much bigger in the local scene. I agree with u that it would be better to do some things really well. Not meaning u can’t have more than one joint but try to make them great places. Not cookie cutter imitations of each other.
We will be starting the mango a go-go fund and will put out a bank account number soon to send your donations. Thanks
View all comments by smitty
i couldnt agree more - i would rather have 1 bar to be proud of, then an empire of bars that are absolute toilet
in the scheme of things id hazard a guess that owning 1 bar like baccara despite its size would be more successful, cost effective,profitable and easier to run then 4-5 shoddy bars scattered between nana and cowboy?
some people obviously have more cash then sense, which is a shame because i think nana expecially could do with some new blood on the go-go scene to keep the others on there toes otherwise it all gets a bit stagnent
i dont know about donations, but if you did set one up and your gogo was as good as your nachos id certainly drink there ;0)
View all comments by myspace.com/penfold_xxx
I’m happy to contribute to the fund, and if you’re looking for a manager I can make myself available. Can we make it a Cowboy venue? It would help with your diversification of location, it’s near my home, and — oh yeah — we can have the lovelies dancing nude from dusk to dawn.
View all comments by werewolf
It obviously looks like I’m the odd one out here - yes Our Place is not the greatest bar in Soi Cowboy, but it’s the first one I ever went to and has some sentimental value for that. I’ve also spent a lot of time in it and I actually worked as a bouncer for Our Place for a short time. For people who like to cruise the go-go scene, yes I can admit, it would be terrible, but for someone who actually stays and gets to know the whole staff, it is a good bar and the service is so much better for me than at any other bar. I have been disapointed with Baccara and Long gun the last few times I went. The ‘evil’ mamasan does look a bit scary, but when you get to know her she is actually really nice and really funny, on several occasions I’ve only sat with her and not any of the dancers. Yes, there are a large proportion of girls that don’t rate high on the beauty scale, but hasn’t it already been proved that those girls perform better in the sack? The ‘fat’ girl mentioned in the post is either Dtae or the girl with the koi tattooed on her thigh, Dtae is very nice but she is yaabaa’d up on some nights, not as much as many other girls I’ve encountered in the soi. The girl with the koi is new and I haven’t had the chance to talk with her yet. The best BG I’ve ever barfined and have done on numerous occasions came from Our Place, Ning, an 8 on the attractive scale. Sunday nights are shithouse at Our Place, it’s much more alive on Friday and Saturday nights. I don’t know about you guys, but I prefer a bar where I’m not competing with a big mass of other guys for the girls attention as occurs in bars like Baccara. The two best and funniest guys I’ve ever met and worked with were the two bouncers P’lek and P’Ko. This guys were guys who you could laugh and joke with for hours on end and it’s what I did on many occasions. They gave me so many insights into life on soi cowboy and a different that a huge majority of the people that frequent the soi will never know or come across. When I return to BKK, the first club I will go to will be Our Place, but it’s each to their own…
btw, the owner is a tosser, I met him on several occasions and he even gave me a big handshake on my last night in BKK and said thankyou for all the business I gave him and for working for him. None of the staff like him and they all want to change the bar to be more unique. One of the mamasans even told me that she wanted me to save as much money as I could and take over the bar and change it to be more successful. Following up on the comment in the article about the amount spent on lights vs dancers, the bar is actually short on dancers because of this problem. The owner refuses to listen to me when I bring it up or any of the other problems (ie the shows). Just as point, the khatoey you mentioned is a khatoey, I know for sure (I guessed and the staff and mamasan confirmed, as a joke P’lek tried to set me up with her/him)
View all comments by Jase
jase - no offense to you but what you are describing is your personal experience and attachment to the bar. I can imagine that each and every one of us can feel the same way about any bar if one invests the time and the money. People may hate lg but I have been going for years and treated like a king there but that does not mean it is a great bar.
What I am describing is the general reaction to anyone walking into the bar and wanting to have a good time. Our place, along with all the bars owned by the same guy, are over time getting worse and worse. He has equalized his bad practices of running any one bar into running multiple bars. Rumor is he is buying even more. I can’t stand any one of his individual bars and I can only see it getting worse. Some of his bars, prior to buying them, I actually liked and now they are going downhill.
You bring up some great points and confirm my suspicions. So I am sure for you going to Our place is still fun but I don’t think many people experience it the same way you do.
thanks for the comments and inside information!
View all comments by smitty
Smitty - I know it’s my personal experiences (I thought I mentioned it several times) - Our Place is definitely not a good bar for those that like to cruise the gogo scene or who have had good experiences in other clubs prior to first entering. I took a group of mates there a while ago and all hated it and we ended up going to LG. I just thought I’d provide my own experiences and insights so that readers get to see the other side of the coin.
If you like getting attached to one place rather than trawling the scene (not that there is anything wrong with that), Our Place should be a club you consider due to there being less competition and being a good quality of people employed (not too many yaabaa’d up girls and beautiful girls with zero personality that are barfined everyday several times). As a rule now, whenever I bring FOBs or mates to Soi Cowboy I will take them to LG or Baccara or just a general trawl through all the bars because I know that Our Place wouldn’t be their thing.
As to the comments about the way the bar is being run, I fully agree. The wasting of money on lights, shithouse shows and making Our Place similar to all the other bars and not making it unique have put the bar in a position where it is likely to start losing a lot of money. I met with the owner, who is concerned that the club is losing money, I suggested that he cut back on lighting and reinvest the money on girls and making the bar more unique, but he decided that I was too young (22) to take seriously and decided that to put on shithouse shows would attract more customers. Those shows are so shit that I can’t even watch them - even at the start when he had the cream of the dancers from the other bars doing them. Talking to the girls, none of them want to perform the shows and none of them supported the bringing in of the shows.
Maybe when it eventually goes bankrupt due to the owner’s stupid decisions, we can get together and use it for the Big Mango’s foray into the gogo scene
I’d happily get involved in that 
View all comments by Jase
j - I hear - was not trying to be a pain about it.
What is funny is I think all of his places are not doing well but yet he continues to do the same thing. He has money anyway so I am not sure if his bars doing well or not matters to him. His attitude is similar to the slum king, I mean go-go king, of Nana. The crown group. They seem to make money or just enough so they don’t care. My guess is it is the same deal with this guy. He has money and makes enough to not really care. One would think pride or ego would start to take over and one would want to have bars people actually like.
Oh well. I guess deep down I hope no one goes to our place so that it fails. It seems to be the case that with Spankys doing so bad in Nana that he wants out. Cowboy is pretty busy as late so all the bars seem to be doing okay - decent or not.
Oh well. good stuff…
View all comments by smitty