PattayaPete

I really did not want to do the cold boxes again as they are labor intensive but as mentioned above they do the job and for some reason Thai fridges do not. We get a lot of Aussis in the bar and they often comment on how hard it is to get a cold beer in Pattaya and how much they appreciate that in the Beer Garden. If you have an Aussi compliment you on the temperature of the beer you know you have got it right.

Tiny! Tiny! You think that is a tiny request!!! You would not believe the stress that tap has caused. Since it was installed it has moved like that. Discussions with the builders went along the lines of "well that's normal blah blah blah". Pointing out that none of the other taps move did not merit a response. Attempt 2 at fixing it was to use our handy man (who also assured me it was normal). He replaced the moving tap with a brand new shiny moving tap. When I pointed out that the new tap was lovely BUT IT STILL MOVES, he shrugged and said it was normal. Attempt 3 was to get my brother in law (who is also the day manager) to fix it. He managed to install a third tap which actually did not move. For about 1 week that is. When it started to move after 1 week, I asked the bro in law whats up. His response was of course that it was normal! I have retired exhausted from the tap saga for now. After I regain my strength I will try again Never underestimate the difficulty of getting simple "tiny" things to work right in Thailand. It's in the master plan. Not portable fans as I don't think they would be effective and with so many tables wiring would be a nightmare (and potentially dangerous). The master plan is to install special fans on the back wall that spray droplets of water. Not the ones you see in Thailand already, that can make you wet and don't actually work very well. There is a new technology in the States that reduces the water droplets to such a small size, they evaporate immediately on leaving the fan. This evaporation causes a temperature drop in the vicinity of the fan by as much as 10 degrees. I have already had a plan drawn up and a quote from an American company who are specialists. It can be done in such a way as to reduce the temperature across the whole balcony. The only problem is that it is really expensive. I have tentatively scheduled the work to be done next low season. Rather than introduce a poor system that does not work very well, I've opted to wait till we can afford a great system that will do the job properly. Till then we have to rely on mother nature to keep the breeze blowing. Not 100% successful I know! On really hot days with no breeze it remains relatively cool in the inside area where ceiling fans are installed.

I've noticed a few comments saying I have not posted about the Pattaya Beer Garden for a while. It’s not so much that I’m lazy (although that could have something to do with it) but more the fact that things have been carrying on in much the same manner. There is not too much new to report and my Dad always told me if I had nothing interesting to say then best to keep the mouth shut! It has certainly been a very low, “Low Season” this year and Pattaya has been quieter than usual. I am happy to say though, that the Beer Garden has been doing OK. We are always working to improve our service and that’s been the main thrust of activity over the past few months. I’ve done a few management training sessions for our Thai managers, which is a lot of fun. I used to train managers back in Farang land so it is fascinating to compare the difference. It can be a little frustrating getting Thais to show initiative. Not that they don’t have any, just that culturally, questioning the boss or suggesting something could be done better is not usually acceptable. One improvement we have made is to the lighting on the balcony tables. It’s always been pretty dim out there but when we increased the strength of the light some customers complained that it ruined the view and the atmosphere. Each table now has it’s own portable lamp that works with rechargeable batteries. The lamp has 3 dimmer levels or you can turn it off so everybody can now set the light level to suit themselves. I’d like to correct some wrong information I have seen posted on Pattaya message boards. I’ve seen a few people commenting that they liked The Pattaya Beer Garden but the food service is slow. While it is true that we were very slow getting food out last Christmas, that is not the case anymore. I often run a stop watch on food orders and most are now served within 10 - 15 minutes. We have not had a 30 minute delay since February. I wrote about this problem in earlier blogs if you are interested in how we fixed it but enough for now to say you should find the service very quick these days. Even when we are full there are no appreciable delays. The second wrong comment I see is about the number of freelancers at The PBG. The numbers have been improving monthly to the point now there are often more girls than guys in the bar after 8 pm. It is true that freelancers are sparse during the day time and early evening. Not because they don’t want to come but because when they do, there are no guys interested. Our daytime customers are mainly in for a drink or a meal and a chat with friends. No customers for the girls means they don’t bother coming in. It’s VERY different from Bangkok in this regard. The promotions we do for the girls on Tuesday and Friday were partly intended to get the girls in earlier. It does bring in quite a few from 7pm but its biggest impact has been to improve the number of late night girls. (Go figure). Anyway it has been a big success and will continue for the foreseeable future. I’m thinking of adding a slightly different but similar promotion on Wednesdays and Thursdays from next month. If I do I’ll be writing about it in the blog. Last Friday I took the trusty video camera down to the PBG and filmed some of the girls just to prove my point. It was shot mainly between 7 pm and 10 pm. As you can see, lots of girls around and although I can’t guarantee how many will be in the bar at any particular time (that’s why they are called “freelancers”) you can generally be pretty sure there will be plenty around between 8 pm and Midnight, especially on Tuesdays and Fridays when we run the promotion. Well that's it for now. I hope to see you enjoying a meal or a drink or a freelancer at The PBG soon. Pete

I've been on it. New planes, reasonable prices and the quickest way to get to Angeles. Cebu Pacific is a budget airline so no free drinks or meals but it's only a three hour flight and you can buy a beer and a sandwich. The only downside is they cancel the service if not enough passengers booked and don't tell you beforehand.

Oh no, the dreaded pizza issue rears it's ugly head again. When we first opened I was not ready for the passion with which some people approach the pizza issue. Originally we made our own Pizzas. I got a lot of good positive feed back about them but a lot of complaints as well. When we switched to Slices Pizzas, pizzas were a hot topic around the Pattaya boards and Slices were getting a lot of positive comments. That's why I chose them. After the change, some people loved it and others did not! It seems to me that there is no answer to this. However you make and cook pizzas, someone is going to love them and someone is going to hate them. As they account for less than 5% of our food sales I don't worry about it anymore and we get very few complaints. I guess those that like Slices Pizzas order them and those that don't like 'em, don't order them. Man, I'd hate to run a pizza restaurant.

Yes there will be. It is every Tuesday and Friday from 7 pm. Actually the promotion is working well and has turned Tuesday and Friday into our busiest nights. Next month we will be starting a different promotion as well, that will run on Wednesday and Thursdays. More details closer to the time.

The freelancer promotion we have been running on Fridays seems to have been quite successful. What we have been doing is giving all single girls that buy a drink in the bar a ticket for a draw at 7 pm on Friday for 5,000 baht. Lot's of girls have been in during the week to pick up their tickets and of course they all have to be in the bar at 7 pm on Friday to win. Result more girls during the week and heaps on Friday night. As it has gone well we will be extending it to another night each week with the second draw on Tuesday at 7 pm. We had a vote among the girls who turned up on Friday as the extra day means reducing the prize pool to 4,000 baht. They voted unanimously in favour of the extra day so hope to see lots of girls in the bar from 7 pm on Tuesday. I hope lots of you turn up as well as the girls get a bit lonely drinking on their own. Don't forget 7 pm Tuesday and then again at 7 pm on Friday. Here's a few pic from last Fridays draw to finish off. The 5,000 baht winner. A very happy girl. The runner up scored 1,000 baht and is quite happy as well. and this one from last week because I thought she was very cute.

Just a reminder guys that the big draw is on again tonight (Friday at 7pm). be there or be square. Nest week we will be having an extra draw on Tuesday night at 7 pm and then the usual draw on Friday.

The turn out by the girls was a little disappointing last night no doubt caused by the black skies that passed over Pattaya at 6pm and the rain which began about the same time as we kicked things off. It seems to rain most times I organise promotions, as it did with the great 100,000 baht beer giveaway. What's up with that??? Nevertheless I think the girls and guys that turned up all had plenty of fun and actually for me it was very gratifying to see lots of the girls hook up with lots of guys. It seemed like the proceedings kind of loosened up the guys too, so lots of happy liasons were occuring. Great to see guys. The promotion is also working well bringing in girls on other days of the week to get tickets. As a lot of ticket holders did not turn up yesterday I'll be getting the staff to remind the girls they have to be here next Friday at 7 pm to win. I hope to see lots of you during the week but particularly at 7 pm next Friday. I made a big effort to get some photos this time so without further ado, here they are. Boss Ann and Night Manager Surpanee prepare to do the draw. When nobody claimed the prize from the first few draws a backward draw was done to attract better luck When that didn't work a male customer was roped into pulling a number followed by a shriek of success from the winner, here frantically trying to find her winning ticket. The man who pulled the lucky number was suitably rewarded by the winner. The cash is handed over. We did a booby prize draw an hour later of 1,000 baht and this is the second winner. San Miquel Lite promotion girls were also present and giving away shirts and trinklets to SML drinkers. Yep, even a few farang women were in attendance. They were not eliglible for the major prize but did pick up some San Miquel trinkets.

I think most like about 2 girls per guy. We usually only get to that ratio after about 10 pm but tonight I'll gaurantee you at least 10 to 1 at 7 pm.

The draw is tomorrow (Friday) at 7 pm. Hope to see some of you there. We have given out over 600 tickets (400 last week) so expect a bumper attendance by the girls. Thanks for the various suggestions. I have found that Thai girls are very hard to promote to. The best promotions are simple, easy to understand and have a gee wizz factor. This is our second draw which is looking like it will be bigger than the first. For now I want to keep it simple and clear. We may add extra features once this idea is well bedded in with the girls.

We are always looking for ways to increase the number of Freelancers hanging out at the Pattaya Beer Garden. It has always been a long term proposition to build the numbers to the same level as the Bangkok Beer Garden and to become as well known to the girls as the Bangkok operation. Our latest promotion for the girls is that when they buy a drink for themselves while waiting for Prince Charming to arrive, they receive a numbered ticket which puts them in a draw to win 5,000 baht each week. The draw takes place at 7 pm every Friday and to win they must be present. We began the promotion last week and had the first draw last Friday. From about 6:30 pm the girls started to roll in and by 7 pm there were well over 100 freelancers in the place. This one really seems to have captured their imagination and I suspect numbers will grow over the following weeks. I am writing about this here because we need lots of guys around at the time of the draw for the girls to take advantage of. While freelancer numbers are growing there are nowhere near 100 in the bar at any one time, EXCEPT on Friday evening at 7 pm. So come on guys, don’t be shy, check out the largest collection of Freelancers in one place at one time every Friday at 7 pm at The Pattaya Beer Garden.

Well we moved a lot of beer I think all who turned up (and there were a lot) enjoyed themselves. The Heineken lasted till 10:30pm and we squeezed out the last drop of Tiger at 11:30pm. The staff hate me coz they worked there butts off but they forgave me in the end (probably because we kept one keg back for the staff to drink after closing). All in all a fun day.

I have noticed that most people take about an hour (on average) to get through immigration and customs where as I take between 10 and 20 minutes. The hour comes from meeting friends and being forced to wait for what seem like forever at the exit door. When they finally emerge I always ask why they took so long and usually get a bit of a blank look. Here's what I do. I usually travel business class so my bags are tagged priority and I am first out of the plane. Regardless of the length of the walk to immigration I make sure I am the first from my plane to get there. Once I arrive I stand back for a second or two and study the queues. Pick a short one with out east asian / arabs. Nothing against east asians / arabs but they do seem to get much more scrutiny and take longer to process. If the queues are long keep an eagle eye open for a new immigration position to open. They always fluff around for a few minutes before they open a new one. When you see this move quickly to the new position. If I am travelling with my wife I use the Thai only immigration positions (nearly always shorter queues). Have never been turned away when with a Thai but they won't process you if you are alone. On my last arrival I was flying Cebu Pacific (budget airline) from Angeles. No business class and I was in the back seat of the plane. I was just about the last person off but managed to get past everyone on the long walk to immigration. I chose my queue wisely and was outside meeting my driver at 2:45 pm. The plane landed at 2:30.

It's here. Free beer day starts at 4 pm TODAY. Hope to see many of you at the Beer Garden.

Everyone is welcome . . . . . including baloon chasers.

It's just two days away to the great 100,000 baht beer giveaway. We have been busy preparing for an expected rush. Extra glasses have been provided by our supplier, the beer is here and hopefully we are ready to go. I really have no idea what will happen but the buzz seems to be around town, lots of girls have expressed an interest in helping to empty the kegs and plenty of guys are keen to see if they can drink us dry as well. I hope it is not too chaotic. Everyone will be issued with standard checks as they order but they will show 0 baht. That will help me keep on top of things although if it all goes really crazy we may just go with Plan B - hand out the beer as fast as we can pour it. The staff are a bit worried about what will happen but they are excited too. The day staff plan to stay on after their shift to help drink as well (very kind of them). Hope to see you Friday from 4 pm for a free beer or three.

Friday 1st May 2009 The Pattaya Beer Garden turns 1 year old and we are celebrating by giving away 100,000 baht worth of free beer. The taps open and the free beer starts flowing at 4 pm. Your choice of Heineken draught or Tiger draught. We won't stop pouring till 2am or we use up the full 100,000 baht worth. Thanks to everyone who has supported the Beer Garden over the past 12 months and made it more successful than we ever dreamed. This is our way of giving a birthday gift to past and future customers. So come along on Friday 1 May and enjoy a bevy on us. No terms, no conditions, just free beer as long as it lasts.

My apologies for the lack of updates on this blog recently. My weak excuse is that I have been home to NZ for a couple of weeks much needed R&R and we have been busy adding a few improvements to the Beer Garden as well. We are approaching our 1st year of operation and with that experience behind us looking at ways we can improve the services The Pattaya Beer Garden offers. Probably the biggest problem I could see was that the main bar was so large that it was a little hard for people trying to meet the girl of her dreams. I wrote in February about the smaller, more intimate bar we were adding specially for those looking to meet someone. Well it has been operational for about a month and seems to be fulfilling its function. Freelancer numbers are up and most are choosing to sit at the small bar. Our afternoon promotion is having a slow but sure effect and the number of girls about in the afternoon is on the increase. We could still use much more and so the promotion will continue through April and probably May as well. The new bar in operation. No change to the bar would be complete without a picture of a crazy Thai workman. In this fine example, when the ladder was not high enough to reach the roof the simple and obvious solution is to tie two ladders together. The tables around the inside of the bar annoyed me. The problem with them was that they were normal height tables so people sitting at the sort of disappeared and go a free view of the bums of people sitting at the nearby bar. (Sometimes not such a bad thing). We have now replaced all the inside tables near the bar with new models that are at standard bar height and they have comfy high backed chairs as well. We have also added fans above this internal seating as it could get quite hot sitting there. These tables all have a near by power point as well and so make an excellent workplace for those who want to use the free wifi. The final improvement finished last month was to the toilets. I made the classic mistake when we built the bar of letting the builders choose the toilets. Of course they chose cheap Thai made ones that are too small for many Farang bums and with a plastic mechanism so cheap it would break if you looked at it for too long. Having kept out maintenance man fully employed for the past year fixing them I finally bit the bullet and threw out the four units we had and purchased five brand new American made Farang friendly appliances. The fifth one will eventually be installed in the Ladies where we only have two stalls at the moment. ( a bit of a bottle neck at times). It's only a toilet but it is Farang friendly. Having got all that out of the way we are no revisiting the menu. No drastic changes are planned but we will drop a few items that do not sell so well and add a few new things. I asked our Executive Chef about a Sausage based meal to add to our comfort food menu and she blew me away by preparing a gourmet delight Sausage and Mash spectacular. With the special sauce she adds it is actually one of my favorite meals now and even a few Thai's who tried it out really loved it. It should be on the menu in a few days. VEGETARIANS TAKE NOTE: I've had a few vegies approach me in the last month asking if we could add some vegie food. We do a mixed vegetable Thai dish as well as Fried Rice with vegetables but we are now looking to add some Tofu dishes as well. As I am not a vegetarian any feedback from the Vegies out there as to what you would like to see on our menu would be welcome. We get a lot of good comments on our steaks. This surprised me a little as I made a decision way back at the start that we would have to use local beef as the imported steaks would lift the price beyond the bracket we wanted to be in. As many of you will know local Thai beef does not make for great steaks but it seemed an unavoidable compromise. While recently going through the prices of different suppliers with the Executive Chef we were looking at steak and she pointed out to me where our steaks come from and how much they cost. I was more than a little taken back when I realized she has been buying and serving imported New Zealand steak the whole time. No wonder they taste so good. Although our profit margin is a bit low on these steaks I am pleasantly surprised that we can do them for the price we do. It must be the cheapest imported steak in Pattaya. We will continue serving these at the same price and I will stop telling everyone they are local beef. In light of the world wide credit crunch and the tough economic situation we will not be raising any of our prices in the foreseeable future. Thailand is actually experiencing quite high inflation at the moment and our cost of goods have gone up around 10 percent in the past year. The volume that we are doing is much greater than I originally planned for though and good news about that, is that it will allow us to absorb the price increases and not pass them on to our customers. See you in the Beer Garden. Cheers Pete

I've been meaning to update this thread for a while so thanks Pattaya Mad for bringing it to the fore again. We have two Nois working service, one daytime one nightime so not sure which one you are referring to but anyway they both have men in their lives, but it never hurts to ask The new bar is completed and has been operational for a couple of weeks and it's been a great success (sort of). Along with the freelancer promotion the idea was to get more action happening in the early afternoon. Well it's worked great from 5 pm onwards but it is still pretty sparse for freelancers before 5 pm. I keep asking them why they don't come earlier and always get the same reply. Not much interest from the guys before 5 pm and anyway it is sleeping time. Still the number of freelancers between 5 pm and 8 pm has greatly increased but still not enough takers. Come on early birds someone must be horny in the late afternoon / early evening. It's also improved the after 8 pm freelancer crowd which is strange as the promo finishes at 8 pm. Never try to understand what motivated a Thai girl. It'll just do your head in.

Pattaya Beer Garden Policy - No lady boys unless accompanied by a farang. In other words lady boys may not use the PBG to find a man, but if they have one already they are welcome to eat and drink with him.

We do have some rules Jacko. Ugly girls need not apply

The promotion is spread by word of mouth and flyers. Thai girls don't usually read signs, or the internet or newspapers for that matter. The promotion which will run for at least 6 weeks is that we will give the girls a gift of 50 baht per hour that they sit in the Beer Garden and do not find a farang up to a maximum of 200 baht in one day. This only applies between 2 pm and 8 pm. Nok is administering the payments and is making contact with each girl as she arrives at the bar. As I explained above we actually have plenty of girls who pass through in the afternoon but if they don't hook a farang quickly they tend to move on. The promotion is designed to keep them in the bar long enough for the passing farangs to find them. It's early days yet and will take a few more days to get traction but I did count around 10 girls in the bar yesterday at 5:30 pm so it is starting to work. Construction on the new bar is moving along and I hope to have that operational early next week and that should give things a further boost.

My vision of the Beer Garden included plenty of freelancers in the afternoon. We started quite well in that regard but as time has passed we have been getting fewer girls in the afternoon. The reason for this is simply that most of the guys hanging out in the daytime have been here to chill rather than look. The girls have stopped coming because they are not finding any guys interested in them. It may be that there is too much else to do in Pattaya during the day but I don’t think so. I think it is more a matter of getting to a critical mass of both girls and guys in the afternoon. So to grease the process we will be running a special promotion for the girls for the next 6 weeks or so. We started today (Friday) and are already getting quite a good response. I expect it to increase rapidly over the first week and the result should be lots of girls looking between 2 pm and 8 pm. After 8 pm we are already getting a good number of girls in. The promotion is only for the girls so there is no direct benefit to you other than there should be a lot more girls in the bar at these times and they will stay longer. However I do need your help. We can get the girls in and encourage them to stay but they will only keep coming back if they find some willing punters. So guys come on in and check out the talent. Even if you don’t want to drink or eat, you are welcome to cruise through and see what takes your fancy. Remember . . . . no barfine . . . . .. no lady drinks. Another comment I have had which I think is relevant is that the big bar is too big to easily make contact with the girl you like the look of. To help with this we are adding a new smaller bar right by the entrance. We will encourage the girls to hang out there and it should make it much easier to make contact with them for the guys that want to. People chilling out can still use the big bar where you won’t be to close to anyone else. Construction on the new bar should start tomorrow and be finished by next Saturday. Finally we have appointed a customer liaison person. Her name is Nok and she will be working from 2 pm to 10 pm. She is not a mamasan as such but she is there to ease the whole process. She speaks excellent English and can help if you have language problems. It is not her job to find guys for the girls but if you see someone you like and would like Nok to ask her to sit with you, she will be happy to oblige. If you are showing a green (looking) coaster and a girl expresses interest in you to Nok then she will mention it to you. No obligation of course. So over to you guys. I am giving it my absolute best shot over the next six weeks. Does Pattaya need an afternoon freelancer hangout? If you think so then drop by and lets get this off the ground properly. Pete

Short You are right in so far as I had never heard of a Slider prior to Mikey ( an American Chef and board member here) suggesting we add them to the menu. He also taught our cooking staff how to make them. I have never had one anywhere else or even heard of them before although I must say I quite like what we make and eat them often. I take it from your comment that they do not meet your definition of a Slider. Can you explain what the problem or difference is.