Hong Kong Nite Club

I used to go to this place back in the late 90’s a lot. What a cool divey sort of bar, with a really cool jukebox & cheap swill to sip through the night. So sad to hear that it closed R.I.P. Hong Kong Bar~you will be missed.

I miss you sometimes…
You were what every dive bar should aspire for.
The little pitchers of beer that act as a glass ala the hole.
The stiff drinks ala cherry bomb.
The smell ala the ken club on a crowded night but without the crowds.
The clientele, their charms and delirious incoherent rambles ala the chee chee.
The hot as hell but you are sweet so i will talk with you bartenders… ala the neighborhood.
The I can stumble home from here ala Jewel box…
God damm you el dorado…
After a drunken day at the ballpark ala Tivoli…
I damm you el dorado!
But, I will still partake in your happy hour and sit at the finest looking bar in san diego and remember my cigarette burning a hole in you (which is still there!-down by the far end).
RIP Hong Kong… Rest in Peace.

Uhm… I went to lots of trouble trying to find this place one night, and it no longer exists. It’s something like Toro… a bar, but totally not the place described here. I wasn’t sure how to report this place closed. Never happened before O_​o

I didn’t even know this joint existed! One drunk night we stumbled upon this establishment and had their signature drink — MoJo. The bartender and manager seemed to be sisters and they mingled with the crowd, encouraging you to drink more! Very divey… they had a few pool tables, but found it hard to actually play a «fun» game of pool b/​c a «yo-​cal» had run of the table… so anyone who wanted to play, had to play him! I was so annoyed — he called me out on EVERY illegal pool move I made… I’m a f-​ing girl and I like to play for FUN, not competition. Towards the end of the night I spotted a few transvestites getting their groove on with some lonely fellows. Go there if you’re with a group of rowdy people.

I passed by Hong Kong Nite Club the other day and thought: «You know, I oughta’ Unilocal that place. It’s SO dive-​y, I bet it hasn’t been Unilocaled before.» And now I log on and find out that it’s been Unilocaled, not once or twice, but eleven times. You Unilocalers are an amazing bunch.
This place puts the «dive» into dive-​bar. It’s one of the dive-​est bars I’ve ever been to, although it’s more the dust-​dive than dirt-​dive variety.
The thing I find most interesting is the people, from the bartenders to the clientele. Seems to be a big x-​military following, with salty Vietnam vets, still wearing their navy hats, ordering cheap beer from Vietnamese women behind the counter. It looks like a page taken out of Old Saigon — or at least out of what I’ve always imagined it to be — with once-​beautiful women flirting with old GIs in a dusty, smokey bar, complete with ceiling fans, linoleum floors and a Buddha shrine in the corner. The only difference between now and then is that the men have fewer teeth and the women have bigger breasts.
Seriously though, do you think it’s possible that this place has ever been the site of a ‘reunion’ (thirty-​some years later), where the very same American vet was served by the very same Vietnamese bartender? The relative ages and the general vibe both make it seem quite possible.

Mojo didn’t make me smart enough to avoid bringing up the ‘Nam.

A hidden treasure, really.
On the seedy side of the town — where every store front is available for lease. The area will flip sooner then later but hopefully the HK Nite Club will remain the institution that it is.
The ladies behind the bar made me laugh every time I placed another order. I recommend flirting with them for added hilarity. Give them a «For a Good Time Call.» dollar bill and see how they react.
I’m a bit surprised that the bar top has not been mentioned as it is pretty amazing. Racy, sexy, raunchy comics line the bar top. I’m sure most are from the late 60’s early 70’s… I asked the girls about the images and they claimed that they had a large roll of these uncut comics which they just lacquered over. BAM! Instant funny time bar.
Highly recommended.
Hints — if they do not give them to you, they do have «slugs» for the bathroom locks. No need to use your own quarters.
Hints pt2 — In the side room i would recommend the use of the rounded legged office style chairs. You’ll notice some duct taped spots on the floor. We did not pay them much mind until one of the legs of our friends chair popped through the floor. You know what, fuck it. Let your friends used the standard chairs and hope that they bust through the floor while taking a sip.
Hint pt3 — the food next door isn’t half bad in case of an emergency.

This is the kind of place that really makes you feel at home. There’s a space to park your shopping cart right outside the door, and the 6’1 busty leopard-​print barely-​there dress-​wearing tranny prostitute drowned in dark musk parfum is ready to molest you on the dance floor.
My shy asian friend (who practically got raped by aforementioned tranny) and I spent a good 2 hours beating every high score on the variety of video-​porn touch screen games in the place. It took concentration, but we did it.
If you’re not explicit with your drink order, be expected to get either straight whiskey, vodka, bourbon, gin or tequila with a splash of water in return. But it won’t cost you over $ 4 or $ 5, and if you drink more than one, you’ll be out on the dance floor with the locals in no time.

hong kong nite club has been around for 24 years, and i hope it stays even though gentrification is edging closer.
i went here for the first time last night. it’s a true dive bar and even though i saw a big bloodstain on the side of the building, it’s really not that scary. it’s a neighborhood bar, albeit in a pretty crappy neighborhood.
i liked it because i got to drink cheaply and nobody bothered me. nobody even looked at me. these people just don’t give a shit and that’s how i like it.
the jukebox has some pretty nice drunken jams. there was some guy singing his heart out to 98 degrees.

now this is what I call a dive bar. it’s a small place with a bar, a few tables, a jukebox, and some pool tables. the inside smelled like stale cigarette smoke, and was decorated with cheap furniture. our bartender was an older Chinese lady that was friendly and was quick to show us the barrel man (a wooden statue that pops a boner when lifting the barrel off) she had behind the counter and other phallus type statues behind the bar. walls were covered with Chinese beer advertisements and a collage of older Chinese ladies and customers. the whole setting gave it that Hong Kong type of feel to it that one would see in a Wong Kar Wai film.
behind the bar is a crude drawing of a woman and on it says «mojo makes you smart.» woohoo!!! is all i have to say about that. try it, that’s their specialty drink, and it’s one of the worst kinds too. it’s the kind that doesen’t taste like it has any alcohol in it. yes, this is the same kind that can do a lot of damage to the inexperienced drinker. the drink costs $ 8 and it was mentioned that it contained 8 types of liquor consisting of gin, vodka, southern comfort, triple sec, tequila, beer, pineapple. juice, and some other stuff i can’t remember. it kind of had a fruity taste to it, and really didn’t taste as bad as i thought it would.
to no surprise the bathroom was dirty and smelled bad. to top it off, you had to pay a quarter in order to use the bathroom (it used a coin lock). no biggie, that’s one of the things that makes a dive bar a dive bar… but minus one star for the smell.
if you’re a fan of dive bars, this is a pretty cool spot. it sits at the edge of downtown and must be doing alright if it’s been there over 20 years. after sitting at the bar it would be kind of hard to forget that «mojo makes you smart.» just thinking about that cheesy picture and slogan makes me laugh.

This place is good if you like to dive-​dive-​DIVE into the world of DIVE BARS.
I like to travel all over town finding new ones or old ones, but more appropriately new to me. I like a juke box and cheap drinks and no pretention.
When I was there a man was telling some of my friends some jokes, but when the jokes turned to gay ones, and we weren’t sure where he was coming from, we all got a little scared. *Only because* he was pretty tall and large and he could definitely take me… I’m pretty sure. . and since his teeth weren’t all there I thought,
«What does he have to lose?»
«We might get our lights punched out?» but after all was said and done, he was pretty innocent… I think.
Be on your guard, but it’s a must see, at least once.

I got the biggest compliment of my life in the HKNC: «Say, lady, you’re the hottest thing in here!» Full set of teeth. Check. Lack of visible panty line through my spandex. Check. Lack of spandex. Check. Yep. I was the hottest! BTW, for added charm, the name is actually Hong Kong NITE Club. Drink cheap, play pool then get a tattoo next door to make it an unforgettable evening.

Something about that neon light that we had passed so many times dragged us in one faithful night…
The two older Asian women (who referred to my friend and I fondly as «baby»)sporting stirrup stretch pants and horribly loud sweaters, served us up some stiff vodka drinks along with a tasty cup o’ noodles (spicy chicken flavor). We played some killer tunes on the jukebox, Journey, Fleetwood Mac etc…
We admired the crowd i would explain as «rode hard and put away wet», took a picture with the jar of pickled eggs, and promptly left when a roach scurried by us. Overall this place was ghettosville/​awesome.
I will be making a trip back for sure.

I don’t know how this bar has survived in downtown San Diego for so long, with all of it’s changes, and still kept it real.
We used to try to sneak cocktails at this place when I was underage, WAY back in the day, back when downtown San Diego was a seedy Navy playground. We’d play dice with the Vietnamese bartender and bet whether or not she’d give us drinks and somehow she always managed to win.
Over the years the HK has been a lil secret of mine — the perfect hipster-​free place you know you could get hooked up with a cheap drink poured well. You want to get jacked up and slow dance to the jukebox with somebody and not have half of San Diego talking about it the next day? This would be the place.
Not a lot of people know this, but Tim Maze and Bob Bennett were seriously considering buying this bar and turning it into what is now the Casbah, when their original bar (Pink Panther) closed back in the 80’s. I love the Casbah and what it has done for San Diego, but I’m glad that deal didn’t go through — I was in HK a couple of months back and it felt exactly the way it did when I was 19. It’s good to have a solid standby.

don’t step to the hong kong if you are some kind of pantywaist. this place will put hair on your chest just by walking in the front door. most patrons have done hard time and the ones that haven’t are just biding their time until they do. myself included. i will shank your mother for her last nickel to buy myself a final plastic-​bottle gin and grapefruit up in here.
you’ve been warned.
JCTSFR: DIE HONKY