PattayaPete

I agree that a 90 minute wait in a restaurant is never acceptable and I am embarrassed that it has come to that a few times over the past couple of weeks in the Beer Garden. I will be writing more about the Christmas debacle in my blog once I have all my thoughts and plans straight but for now I'll just say that I called the whole thing completely wrong. It was our first Christmas and I just has no idea what was going to happen or how we would deal with it. Just how wrong I was will all be revealed in due course. New Years Eve was another debacle but for different reasons. I actually though we might be quiet as we were not doing a party or anything special. Duh, completely wrong again. In fact by 10 pm on New Years Eve we were so full I had to close the gate and refuse entry to new people. This did not go down well with more than a few people who abused me roundly through the closed gate. However when I got home that night and heard the news about the Bangkok fire I felt somewhat vindicated in my decision. I am already working on a better plan for next New Year. Several people have commented that my excuses for slow food service are getting old and things should be right by now. I fully understand that point of view but I also know how much we have improved over the past 8 months. Back in May we struggled to do 100 meals a day. When we struck 200 a day in September it was tricky but several changes in the Kitchen and extra staff helped. In November we were almost coping with 400 meals a day and further refinements were added. By Christmas time we were doing well over 500 meals a day and really not coping. Every improvement I made to fix the situation just got swallowed up in extra growth. When Mikey was here he reckoned we would max at at about 500 meals in terms of capacity and I think he was right. The good news is that the big Christmas rushed ended last Friday and since then we have been coping remarkably well with 400 plus meals a day. It seems easy now that we have peaked out over the Christmas fortnight. I am sure a few more surprises still await me but it's downhill from here to May and our first full year of operation. To anyone that got a bad meal or a protracted delay over the holiday fortnight my sincere apologies. I doubt we will ever be that bad again. I'll be posting a major analysis of what went wrong and how I plan to prevent it happening again on my blog in a week or so and will certainly welcome any feedback, positive or negative. Pete

I am never happy when someone has a bad experience at the Beer Garden and I apologize to those who were unhappy with their experience last night. Having said that I'd like to point out a couple of things that are not clear from the above posts. I decided to abandon the set menu on Wednesday night when many of our customers complained that they did not want to spend 595 baht on an appertiser, main and dessert. I replaced it with individual specials (the exact same food) but ordered individually. I also reduced the cost by 50 baht. In other words ordering the same meal as the set menu but as individual items cost 50 baht less than the set menu. Last night most people chose to order the Turkey (340 baht) and Christmas pudding (120 baht) but no appertiser for a total spend of 460 baht. I received two complaints last night both from quite big groups. It is apparent to me that we do not handle big groups well. I'll be doing some work on that. Big Mick, I appreciate that you were not happy. However your comment that I did not give a shit is hardly fair. When you complained to me I went off to check why the food had come out in your words "stone cold". I returned and apologised for the problem and asked what you were drinking. As it was a sherry that you had brought in yourself and we do not sell sherry, I offered you a complimentary bottler of red wine. Which you accepted. As I walked away from the table someone mumbled at me that as it was a big group two bottles would be better. I returned with a bottle of Italian Montepuciano D’Abruzzo which we sell for 1,120 baht and a bottle of Californian Zinfandel Painter Bridge which we sell for 1,190. You might describe them as cheap and their price is reasonable in the Beer Garden. In other restaurants these wines are sold for over 2,000 baht each. Personally I enjoy both of these wines and your group appeared to enjoy them as well. I offered the wine, not to "palm you off" but as compensation for a poor experience. This was our first attempt at doing a special meal for a special occasion. I learned a lot from the experience and will write more about this soon in my blog. Last night was our biggest night ever. We served well over 500 meals and most were good. Personally I loved the lamb and the Chritmas pud. The day and evening ran smoothly except for the critical time which always seems to trip us up and that's 7 - 8:30pm. Over 150 meals were ordered in that period and we did stuff up a few of them and the service was slow. The set menu would have solved that problem but out customers were not happy with that solution so for now it's back to the drawing board on how we can deal with such big rushes. I do believe our service staff are second to none and they do try hard to provide good service. They are Thai and when farangs get upset they often have problems understanding what the issue is or how they can help. Last night the second big group that had problems complained to their waitress. They were English people with strong accents and she could not understand what was wrong. My wife then got involved and as she has been trained to do, asked what she could do to make them happy. In response she got a torrent of abuse from a particularly formidable English woman. She asked again how she could make it right for her and received further abuse. Ann then came and got me and I sorted things out with relative ease. The point of this story is not to blame the customer however my wife does speak good English and has a very good understanding of Farang ways. However this group was too much even for her. It would be impossible to find service staff as good as Ann so I have to accept that some problems will always occur especially when people are upset. I am not complacent and will continue to work on staff training but I do accept some limitations imposed by the language barrier and cultural differences.

Bushcraft The bar can be a little deceiving as to how busy we are. I came in last night at 8 pm and every table was full. Because of the size of the place it may not look overly busy but every table full means over 150 people eating. We get the food out in less than 20 minutes 90% of the time but if we get a lot of people all arrive around the same time as happened last night it does slow down. In such circumstances all we can do is tell customers what the delay is going to be. You asked but if you hadn't they would have told you anyway.

On December 24 and December 25 we will be doing a special Christmas dinner at the Beer Garden. For those two nights we will have a special Set Menu with Thai Treats appertiser, a choice of Traditional Roast Turkey with stuffing, mixed vegetables and Cranberry Sauce OR Roast Lamb, Yorkshire pudding, fresh vegetables, Sauté Potatoes and Mint Sauce OR (for the Thais), King Prawns With Butter Mayonnaise, Fried Rice and Butter Vegetables. Followed of course by Christmas Pudding with Custard or Brandy Sauce and Ice Cream. The price will be 595 baht. I was actually hoping to do it for less than 500 baht but the special Christmas ingredients are not cheap and 595 was as low as I could get it. It does seem most places around town are charging well over 1,000 baht for similar fare so I think we can maintain our reputation for quality food at cheap prices. Even the Thais should be happy as the only farang food they will be forced to have is the pudding. Having a Set Menu is a first for us, inspired by the fiasco on Loi Katong when we were overwhelmed by customers and the food service got really slow. By having only the set menu options we should be able to churn them out at a good pace. The only question for me is will anyone want to eat Christmas Dinner in the Beer Garden. I really hope so as we have had to order in all the Turkeys and Lamb in advance so if it’s not a hit I guess it will be Turkey sandwiches at home for a looooong time  December started off a little more quietly than November, no doubt because of the Airport fiasco. It was a blessing for us on the food side as it gave us a little breathing space to break in the additional staff employed in the kitchen. Customer numbers are now back up to November levels and we seem to be coping better. Three extra cooks and additional kitchen hands are obviously helping. Food service can still be a little slow at peak times but the staff will always warn if it is going to take more than twenty minutes. Overall I am very happy now with what the kitchen is turning out. I’ve been rabbiting on in this blog about the food service because the demand has been somewhat greater than anticipated and that’s where we experienced the most problems. It is certainly good to have it under control at last. However, the bar is still the mainstay of the Beer Garden and accounts for 60% of our revenue. I haven’t talked about it much because it seems to run very smoothly and I’m really pleased with the response. Freelancer numbers are not as good as I would like but we are getting more and more every month and most importantly, the ones I talk to really enjoy doing their hunting at the Beer Garden. That is important because if they like the place they tell their friends and so the numbers continue to grow. Last week I attended a party in baby Dolls A Go Go which was lots of fun but the bar was crowded and noisy (as a go go bar should be) and after a couple of hours I headed back to the Beer Garden. Fighting my way through the Christmas crowds on Walking Street it was a relief to finally hit the beer garden. It all seemed so calm, peaceful and relaxing after the madness of Walking Street. Lot’s of people have said this to me before but for some reason it really hit home that night and I just appreciated what a great location it is. An Oasis in the madness is has how many enthusiastic punter has described it and I must say I think they are right. I remember sitting in the empty bar in April as we were building the beast and wondering what the year would bring. I was confident the bar would work but with the amount of money invested and the unknown freelancer situation I was still nervous. I tried to picture what the place would look like if it was full of customers and girls, drinkers and dinners, flirts and loners, grumpy singles and happy groups. It was hard to imagine. The reality has far exceeded my wildest dreams and I’d like to say a big thanks to everyone who has tried the place. We have had more than our share of teething problems and it’s not 100% right yet but it’s been an adventure. The positive comments in person and through email and on the boards have been fantastic. I really enjoy operating the Pattaya Beer Garden and love the fact that so many other people enjoy something a bit different in Pattaya. So a big Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all our customers past and future and a huge thank you to you all for making the venue a success. Now it’s onwards and upwards for 2009. I still have lots of plans to improve the venue and to hopefully make it a must call in place for all of you. I hope all your dreams come true in the New Year. Pete PS We will also be doing a set menu on New Years Eve and New Years Day. It is not finalized yet but I’ll post details once we have worked it out.

While it is true that the restaurant side of the business has somewhat exceeded my expectations (to put it very mildly) the freelancer side is certainly still a very important part of the business. The freelancer thing is a long haul operation. I knew that from the get go and I still expect it to be the biggest part of the business. The thing is to get enough business for the girls to make it worth their while hanging about. From about 8:30 pm most nights there is a good selection of girls in the bar. Considerably more than there are takers unfortunately. As has been mentioned before there are very few girls about during the day or early evening. This is not because the girls are not interested but because they do not get any takers when they come in early. It's the old chicken and egg problem that all freelancer places experience. No girls and the monger types will not hang about, no mongers hanging around and the girls will not stay. The good news though is that the chill out and eating with the girlfriend crowd and the late night freelancers provide a perfectly adequate business base. We could survive quite happily on those customers alone. However I am determined to put the Pattaya Beer Garden on the map as a great freelancer place and will continue working hard to achieve that. When FLB started, I did not have the luxury of waiting out the chicken and egg problem. This time I do and believe me I am very, very determined. If you are a monger and you want to help then you can. Simply drop by the bar and cruise for suitable freelancers. Slim pickings in the day but plenty of fine candidates most nights. You don't have to have a drink or spend any money at all. Just cruise through on your way to or from Walking Street. If you find a good girl then you save yourself a bar fine and if you don't the walk is pleasant and the sea breeze refreshing and you can console yourself with the thought that you are helping to get something Pattaya desperately needs off the ground. So come on guys, help our poor freelancers to make an honest living!

Something screwey with your browser then. I'd try to reinstall it or change to Firefox if you are not already using it.

Sounds to me like your cookies are screwed up. Try this . . . Go to the front page of the board. In the lower right hand corner is a link "Delete cookies set by this board". Click on it. Close your browser then open it again. When you come back to the board you will need to log in again.

Your special chair is reserved just for you Spring.

I have posted about delays in getting the food out at the Beer Garden a few times now. It really has been our major problem since we started and we really hit a bit of a wall this past fortnight. In my previous posts about this problem I have outlined actions taken to improve the situation and yet it continues to be a problem. You could be forgiven for thinking that previous solutions have failed. While that would appear to be the case the reality is that the restaurant side of the Beer Garden has grown phenomenally in the past few months and the solutions applied have all worked but been too little, too late. The real problem has been a lack of management in the kitchen. Although I would consider myself an experienced manager, the kitchen side of the business scares me. I am the world’s worst cook and what I know about organizing a kitchen would take about two seconds to tell. Given my lack of expertise I made a point of hiring a very experienced Executive Chef and gave her full power to run things as she saw fit. Well, Pin is a great Chef and generally the quality of the food we have been putting out has been excellent. Sadly though, it has dawned on me that she is a crap manager. In August we were doing about 100 meals a day. In September we hit 150 and things started to slow down again. In October, Mikey, an experienced western Chef spent a week with the staff working on their western food skills. At his suggestion we added a new super sized grill, extra burners and a salamander. In October we hit 200 meals a day. On Loy Kratong night in November the kitchen did 450 meals. Not surprisingly the delays that night were looooong. It concerned me but it was a special night and a one off or so I thought. Last Monday we hit 400 meals again and once more delays in getting the food out at peak times hit one hour or more. This was exacerbated as one of our evening cooks had to attend to a dieing grandmother, so we were one cook down that night. I’ve been keeping out of the kitchen as I felt I was just getting in the way. A visit to see the problem close up on Monday revealed utter chaos. Food orders were streaming off the printer and falling on the floor. One of the service staff had been seconded into preparing vegetables to free up the cooks time for cooking and the two cooks on duty were running around like blue arsed flies. Not a good look. That night after the rush had died down I had a meeting with Pin to discuss what we were going to do about the problem. The discussion was somewhat fruitless. One of the things that bug me about Thai staff is that they generally don’t see the big problem as they concentrate on the small details. Pin’s suggestions were all detail issues which would help a little but would not solve the overall problem. I decided then and there that I would have to get involved more directly or things would only get worse. Monday night I sat down and wrote out all possible solutions. These included increasing the price to dampen demand, building a second kitchen, hiring more staff, finding a good kitchen manager or reducing the number of items on the Menu. It seemed to me that price rises or limiting the menu were counter-productive. Any business that tries to limit demand must be doing something wrong. That left management, staff and a second kitchen as possibilities. A second kitchen is do-able as we do have the space. However other restaurateurs around town have told me they envy our kitchen for its size and equipment. It seems unlikely that more equipment was going to fix things. That left management and staff. On the evening shift when we have the longest delays we have three cooks and two kitchen hands working. Of course they have holidays and sick grandmothers and days off so more often than not one or more of them is away. I decided to add one more kitchen hand to work from midday to 8 pm with the sole purpose of doing prep work. Then two more cooks to cover 3 pm to 11 pm which are our busiest food times. This would increase the staff at busy times by almost double. I had another meeting with Pin early Tuesday and pointed out that she is a great Chef and a nice lady but as a Manager she was doing poorly and so I’d decided to get more involved. Hopefully with my management experience and her cooking experience we could get it sorted. I was a bit worried about her reaction but I am pleased to say she agreed with me and was well aware of her own limitations. I think I took a big load off her shoulders and she has been really happy this week. My first “management” decision was to set goals for the kitchen. I wanted an average order time of ten minutes and no more than twenty minutes when very busy. I nominated Pope, our trainee bar manager as special kitchen liaison and gave him the responsibility to prioritize and organize food orders coming off the printer and getting the service staff to inform customers if the delay was going to be more than 20 minutes. Pin was given the job of finding the new staff asap. That was Tuesday and since then we have continued to do over 400 meals a day. We have one extra cook already at work and another starting on 1 December. Still looking for the prep person but finding him/her is a priority. Delays at the busiest times are down to 40 minutes. That is still unacceptable but getting better daily. The kitchen now seems to flow rather than lurch from crisis to crisis. My apologies to any customers who have experienced unacceptable delays. We are now getting on top of the problem and I hope to meet our time goals by 1 December. For now things are definitely better than they were and set to improve further over the next ten days or so. I think I know how to manage a bar and the bar at The Beer Garden runs very smoothly. We are seeing a similar growth in the bar business but that bar staff have coped admirably. The kitchen has been a huge learning curve for me but really it is just another management problem and I’m not so scared of it now. As I pointed out to the staff this week having problems dealing with quite meteoric growth is a lot more fun than dealing with the opposite problem. I hope to see you soon at the PBG for a cold beer or a hot freelancer or a speedily delivered meal Pete

Ordering in extra Bicardi now Spring. See you in December.

I was sitting in the bar on Halloween night (last day of October) and remarked to a friend that as the next day was 1 November officially the end of the rainy season and the start of the high season, we could expect all raining to cease forthwith and hordes of tourists to descend on Pattaya. For those of you who don't know, this has been the rainiest, rainy season in (my) living memory and one of the worst low seasons for bar owners to boot. The good news is that 1 November proved to be our busiest day in the Beer Garden to date and it didn't rain. However as I sit here typing this today a wild thunder storm is busy scaring the wife and the rain is persisting down outside. Hopefully the rain will really depart from the high season shortly and bar owners can feel a little relieved at the crowds now descending upon Pattaya. Many people, including me, felt that high season this year might not happen, what with global economic meltdown, fuel price volatility and airlines charging unheard of fares. Nevertheless it would appear that the draw of Pattaya is to great for many to resist and despite the worlds problems, a holiday in Fun City is still important to many. Early days yet but a good start to November seems to have boosted everyone's morale. I did a tour of the bars of Walking Street last night and the place was hopping. The Pattaya Beer Garden does seem to have reached a new level in the last month. We have been very busy at times and are back to a few growing pains. More about that later. Some days it can be hard to find a seat at the bar and the outer tables are often full in the evening. Here's a few pics of the bar snapped last night. Mikey an old friend from FLB days and Chef to the stars in Los Angeles was in town during October and generously took time out from a very busy holiday to work with the PBG Chefs on improving their farang food skills. The staff really enjoyed the opportunity to pick the brains of a great western Chef and also managed to pass on to Mikey some of their Thai food secrets. Mikey in action at the grill. With Mikey's help we have added some extra items to the Menu, including Sliders -Three Mini Cheese Burgers with Pickles, Grilled Onions and French Fries, Teriyaki Chicken Sticks - Skewered Chicken tidbits Marinated in Teriyaki Sauce and cooked on an open flame, the classic Tuna Melt, Ham Melt and some really tasty sandwiches including a real American style BLT (much improved from our previous offering) and Meatloaf which is cooked on the premises each day and can be eaten in a sandwich or as a full dinner. We've also added a Chicken Korma for those who like Indian food. Mikey and some of the PBG kitchen team. As I mentioned above we are still going through growing pains. The bar works well and our level of service seems good. We are struggling again to get food out in a timely manner. At Mikey's suggestion we added extra cooking equipment inn the kitchen, including a new and much bigger grill, extra burners an additional deep fryer and a second microwave. The kitchen is now split into a farang side and a Thai side which should improve the work flow as well. During October the number of meals we produce each day doubled, so despite our Kitchen improvements the wait time for food has not shortened and at some times actually got longer. During the busy dinner period from 6 pm to 9 pm there can be delays of 30 minutes or so. That's not really acceptable to me. We do try and let customers know if the delay is likely to be more than 15 minutes. The Executive Chef and me are working hard to get the times down to acceptable limits but we are not there yet. We will get there though. On the subject of under performing I read a thread on the Secrets Forum in which the poster complained of receiving a cold meal at the Pattaya Beer Garden. He did not complain to the staff but voted with his feet and left. It was gratifying to see three pages of replies from people saying their experience had been much better and suggesting that most restaurants produce a bad meal from time to time and to give it another try. The original poster agreed to do so and felt due to his alcohol intake he may have been a bit hasty in passing judgment. I raise the subject because I want to reiterate our commitment to giving all our customers a great experience. Ann and I have been working hard to get it right and we are succeeding. However we can't get it right 100% of the time. If we mess up we will put it right though. One of our strongest pushes with the staff has been to explain that if a customer is not happy then it is OUR problem and we MUST do something about it. This is not a concept that comes easy to most Thais. So, if you are not happy with our service, for any reason, please complain. The staff take customer complaints seriously and are under strict instructions to make it right. If that means a refund, or cooking it again, or getting a colder beer, they will do it. Please just ask. We also added an overhead plate warmer to the kitchen equipment so that if a meal is slow to be served for any reason, it will stay hot. Having said all of the above I'd still like to remind everyone that Thailand is not the west, Thai's grasp of English is not that of a native speaker and some communication difficulties are bound to occur. That's part of the fun of a visit to Thailand. A few days ago one of the waiters asked me to speak with a customer because his order was not clear. On speaking to the gentleman, he requested a plate of mixed vegetables from the Thai menu with a side of Asparagus and a baked potato from the farang menu but no butter on the potato as he was health conscious. Not a difficult order for me to understand but beyond most Thai waiters. I passed the order on to the Chef and invented a price on the spot. The mixed vegetables are 70 baht so I added a further 20 baht for the potato and 20 baht for the side of asparagus, all up 110 baht. That seemed fair to me and I explained it to the customer who was happy. Ten minutes later the plate arrived and to my dismay contained about a quarter of the normal mixed vegetable meal a few pieces of Asparagus and a huge baked potato in the middle. The customer was happy with it but there was no way I could charge the additional 40 baht. I put the price back top 70 baht and everyone was happy. The waiter did not understand the customer, the customer did not understand the waiter, I understood the customer but the Chef did not understand me. What was ordered and what was delivered were somewhat similar but there was lots of room for someone to get upset. The way our food service works is that all items on the menu have number. The waiter takes the number and passes it on to the cashier. She enter it in the computer which produces a Check in English for the customer and prints a ticket for the Chefs in Thai. This reduces communication problems but chaos can result if you try to change standard items around. We can but try to get it right. I had to laugh when I noticed the Mixed Vegetable, health conscious customer had drunk 15 Singha Beers prior to his healthy food order. He laughed as well when i pointed it out that it was a little incongruous. Our daytime business has been great but very few ladies appear during the day. I'd like to see more but really the problem appears to be that the girls who make an effort to come early rarely hook up with a guy. Most customers in the daytime are more interested in Chillin' than Lookin'. No action for the girls means they don't come back in the daytime. I think that will slowly get better but if you want to speed things along please do say hello to any girls in the bar during the daylight hours. Last month I mentioned an abundance of girls appearing around 9 pm and staying to around 11 pm. That has been a useful core time for guys looking to hook up. I am pleased to say that those times have been expanding with quite a few girls turning up as early as 6 pm and more than a few lingering long past midnight. Six months down the track I'd have to say I am happy with progress. More girls, particularly early on would be good but the numbers do seem to coincide with the amount of guys Lookin'. I don't know how the girls know but they do seem to have a sixth sense about this. Our free wifi Internet connection has been a bit of a headache this month. It all started to go wrong when I went up country for a week in October. On my return the Internet had stopped working. A quick trip to TOT confirmed they had cut it off for non-payment. Fortunately I'd brought the bill with me with receipt attached. The TOT clerk explained that although the bill had been paid on time in October and was completely current, they had cut it off because we paid the June account a week late six months ago. When I pointed out that that was fu%^&^$%^#$ ridiculous she agreed that they would reconnect it without charge. Thank you so much @#$%((. Since then it has been very unreliable, dropping out regularly and when it does work its pretty slow. I've applied for a new line from TT&T which they said would take a week about three weeks ago. Once it's in it should fly though as we will have a business package and speeds of 4 mbits. Anyone who has spent time here knows that good Internet service is hard to come by. I am hopeful that with our new service we will be one of the fastest in Pattaya. Time will tell. Martin and Pin from FLB Bar are regular diners at the PBG and I snapped this pic of them the other night at sunset. I really liked how it turned out and those Pattaya sunsets can be spectacular. Cheers for now Pete

This level of rain in Pattaya is definitely unusual. This is my 11th rainy season here and this year it has been much much wetter than any previous year. A couple of years back Pattaya was suffering from an acute water shortage when all the reservoirs dried up for lack of rain. No chance of that this year. Rainy season finishes at the end of October and usually that would mean virtually no rain again till next June. This year though is anyone’s guess.

Kolah, we do have a wide range of ice cream treats available in the bar. I've never seen the "coldstone" idea but will check it out.

The no shirt guy caused a few negative comments around the internet. I must admit it never occured to me that it would be a problem. Out on the balconys lots of guys expose their manly chests during the day. I've never seen anyone do it at night or in the bar itself. Personally I find it quite acceptable to catch a few rays during the day if your sitting at a table away from anyone else. Remeber Pattaya can be hot. Is there a consensus on this? What do you think? If enough people don't like it I suppose we could put up a sign (topless sunbathing not permitted). On second thought maybe it should say Female topless sunbathing permitted, Male topless sunbathig not allowed.

When I had FLB I'd often get a park on Pratamnak Rd opposite the VC hotel. If they were all full then by the Marine 3 Disco between the Arab bars (20 baht). Now with the Beer Garden I still look on Pratamnak near Soi 16. Often a free space there before 7 pm. Failing that its the Wat on Pattaya Tai (10 baht) In the Wat I park right at the back and use the side entrance/exit on to Second Rd, through Mike Department store and on to Beach Rd.

Pap While that is usually not an option on our menu, if you order one while I am in the bar I'll get the cooks to do a special for you. I'll eat one piece and if you finish the rest then there will be no charge. Are you man enough

I've been busy the last couple of weeks making the Pattaya Beer Garden video. It will be appearing on Pattaya People TV channel, six times a day starting Friday. However if you would like a preview you can watch it streamed and if you like download a high definition or DVD quality version. Click here to view or download the Pattaya Beer Garden Video We also featured in the Pattaya People newspaper "Eating In and Eating Out" dining guide this week. You can read their review here. Click here to view Pattaya People Dining Guide We did struggle with the Pizza thing for a while but seem to have the system working well now. It seems we had the wrong type of pizza oven. So now we have a new one and in the main the comments have been positive. Thai food however still outsells pizzas by about 30 to 1. Business has been good and despite all the doom and gloom around Pattaya at the moment, I am feeling very positive about the PBG. With the news that Soi 6, Soi 7 and Soi 8 are not going to be allowed to open in the afternoon, I'm hoping we may get a freelancer increase during those times. They are still fairly light in numbers during the day but we have an embarrassment of riches from around 9 pm each evening with far more ladies than guys. Short and sweet for this update. I hope you enjoy the video and do feel free to share it with anyone you want to. I will be posting a lower quality version on you tube shortly.

Sounds like a good idea stevoman. I appoint you to train the Thai staff how to do it. Haere mai, kia ora tatou.

Hi TF Heinz We already have fried vegetables and rice on the menu. I'll look into adding the chicken/beef option. Cheers Pete

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I've noted the comments in this thread and will be discussing the problems with the cooks and fixing them tonight.

They have not appeared "all of a sudden". We have been working our asses off for five months to make it a place that the girls would like to hang out. Our efforts are paying off with the night time crowd. Still more work to do with the daytimes though.

I have heard many good comments about the food we serve at The Pattaya Beer Garden. The quality is good and the prices very reasonable. Unfortunately our Pizzas have not received universal acclaim. At first I thought it was just different opinions about how a Pizza should be cooked. New York style, Chicago style , European style or even Pizza Hut style. However it became obvious that PBG style was not a style favoured by most. Some research lead me to Slices Pizzas, a franchise Pizza operation in Pattaya that has been getting very good reviews. I had a chat with Bobby the boss there and we have come to an arrangement. From now on the Beer Garden will be serving original "Slices" pizzas. They are made at the Slices factory and delivered fresh but uncooked to us each day. We'll be cooking them on premises, much as the Slices franchises do. We will be offering generous sized slices for 50 baht or the full Pizza for 250 baht. This is a little bit more expensive than our own made varieties but they are much bigger and much tastier as well. For the record they are "New York" style and we have Bolognese, Pepperoni, Ham & Pineapple and Seafood flavours available. We have added a few more items to the menu as well. Most notably Eggs Benedict on the Breakfast menu and Whole Steamed Snapper with Lemon Sauce to the Thai menu.

Bob we are both in Pattaya so our results should be similar but obviously are not as I find Pattaya Talk to be the fastest Pattaya board. The server for Talk is located in a very fast data centre in the USA. I am sure it is not a Pattaya Talk issue that is causing your problem but something either on your computer or with your ISP. Try deleting your Pattaya Talk cookies. You can do this by going to the main Pattaya Talk page and clicking on "Delete cookies set by this board" near the bottom right of that page. After deleting cookies log off, reboot your computer and log in again. If that doesn't work then changing your dns server to an open dns may help. It's a bit complicated to do this as it depends on a number of factors. A search on google for open dns should come up with some info on how to do it with your particular set up. Failing that a change of ISP may be in order.