"Better days" must be one of the great understatements!
The question has been asked before, and there may be little point bringing it up again but why is it that so many bars have been closing down? We know all about the apps and there now being less need for the boys to meet customers in a bar. But there surely has to be more than that. I remember when Krazy Dragon opened. It had a gimmick and despite the bar being overlarge, I believe it worked and was popular for a while. But then the management seemed to lose control of what was happening inside. The boys stopped circulating around around the tables, either preferring to concentrate on one or two, or spending ages chatting with their mates behind the bar. The bar manager or whoever was in control clearly had lost control and was bored. The quality of the boys also went downhill even before the bar was sold. Thereafter with the second owner it seemed to nosedive.
Happy Boys just outside Sunee seemed a fun place with quite a few customers whenever I was in town. Not to everyone's taste, understandably. but it had its own gimmick which seemed to work. Both bars are now dead.
The other night my friends and I actually had a good time in one of the gogo bars. The boys were fun to sit with, there was no great pressure to keep buying drinks (although we did) and we were happy to part with pretty generous tips. We were not planning to off anyone and again there was little pressure to do so. Yet there were few other customers over the 90 minutes or so we spent there.
Is it only the apps? Are bar managers simply inept at their jobs? Do owners really care any more? How do they start bringing the fun element back into their establishments?