graraps

Had a one-night layover and decided to, for the first time ever, stay on the peninsula (but most definitely not in The Peninsula! ) instead of the island. Wanted to have a coffee early afternoon and decided to avoid Starbucks- but nobody seemed to know of any Pacific Coffee outlets nearby, and there seemed to be little in the way of independent cafes (and I was being too thick to realise/remember that there's a lot more going on in Mongkok than around Jordan). I walked down Nathan Road a bit in case I came across anything...One office block had signage for 3-4 cafes on the higher storeys, so I wandered into the entrance and saw banners for them right next to the lift, showing off pictures of their interiors and, in one case, even a snack menu. The interiors looked a bit dark and full of sofas, and there were no shots of customers or any other activity. One of them did have a picture of a Danesi espresso cup, so I thought 'well, I don't care what kind of place it is, I need my fix NOW, so I'll just go up there'. Took lift to floor 20, the door was locked. What coffee shop is there anywhere in the world that's closed at 13:30?

Remembering that there was another one on the 19th, I climbed down the stairs to find TWO locked doors - one was signed "VIP Members only". That must be quite an elite coffee venue!

Went downstairs and noticed one of them had opening times, and it opened at 15:00. Closing time was either midnight or 3 am (I'm a bit confused), which is also very odd for an office-block-based cafe!

So, does anyone have an idea of what kind of places these are? Girly bars, 'hidden' gambling rooms, centres of other illegal activity or merely some legit but VERY confused coffeeshops?

rkkwan

Definitely not coffee shop. Girls, drugs, rave parties, gambling, whatever. But not coffee.

graraps

Maybe I should check them out in my next visit.

MegatopLover

Me too! Except not the girly bars.

I just love that you stumbled across these accidentally, graraps. It's like a little window into the past, the misty days of old Hong Kong. But, seriously, what did you think when you took the lift up to the 20th floor in a building full of high-floor "cafes"?

Reminds me of a time last year when I was looking through an old tourist guide book to Hong Kong printed in the late 1980s, which my family bought before our first trip there. The book had huge sections on what to do in hostess clubs and what the girls supposedly think of all the white men who patronize those places. Saw a bunch of those in TST East. But now, like Kai Tak, they're mostly gone. Or at least gone underground.

graraps

I thought that I needed a caffeine fix and that they may be all-day shops rendering differing services depending on what time you visit them. Plus the shot of the Danesi cup. But I like people-watching, and, as long as there was no pressure to participate, I wouldn't have minded visiting a gambling shop or girly bar and looking at the goings-on.

ChrisLi

It depends what type of caffine fix you wanna to do. If you want a caffine fix plus some eye candy, SOHO - Peak bar may be a better choice (Sorry it's @ Central)

I think you can try Knutsford Terrace for a Turkish Coffee (with some eye candy @ night), but they are busy restaurants and not for pro-longed stay. Starbucks is always my first choice for caffine fix in Hong Kong ...

rkkwan

There has always been a huge underground "society" in Hong Kong. The movie producers don't just imagine plot lines and backgrounds for "A Better Tomorrow", "Infernal Affairs" and all the rest.

The key is a "balance". The cops and the triads each know their bounds. When one side pushes it too much, then the other side pushes back. And the society needs its "entertainment", which these places provide. If you crack down on them too much, people are not going to stop the activities - you just push more to go to Macau and more significantly these days - Shenzhen. Which the HK authorities have zero control over.

So, as long as nobody is getting killed. No huge number of young people overdosing, and not too many people jumping off highrises due to gambling debts, this "balance" is maintained. Everybody's happy.

graraps

As mentioned in the OP, I like Pacific Coffee (the free internet doesn't hurt!), but I was unfamiliar with the neighbourhood and nobody knew where the nearest one was.

graraps

duplicate post

rkkwan

Pacific Coffee are mostly in tourist/expat/yuppie areas, as well as in large shopping malls. According to their website, they only have one store in Mongkok, on Prince Edward Road West; and one in Jordan - inside the Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

Of their 5 stores in TST, the northern most one is in the Miramar.

Starbucks have more stores in the area - including Nathan Hotel in Jordan, the Gala Center on Dundas Street, etc... But, no free computer to use, of course.

Pickles

Or my favorite from that genre, "Chungking Express."