Revolucion De Cuba Opens

I went to the launch of Revolucion De Cuba, a new bar, on Peter St on Friday 12^th. I wasn’t bowled over.

The night started with promoters dressed in white suits, posing by a white Cadillac parked up outside the venue, formerly Squares. I tried to film it but my shitty HTC Wildfire wouldn’t focus. The flyer I had offered me a free drink on entry, but the door staff took the flyer off me at the door. The queues for drinks were long. The first drink I got I didn’t have to pay for, but I found myself thinking- how did the barman know that the drink he served me was my free first drink? I could have gone ‘round to the other side of the oval-shaped bar and got my “first drink” again off another member of staff if I’d been the type. Having said that, as the barman took neither the money nor the flyer off me I was left feeling like I’d ripped the bar off. Strange. 

The bar is unrecogniseable from it's old guise- Squares had a gaping hole in the middle of the floor which allowed customers to peer down from the quadrangeld balcony to a lower-level dancefloor. This has been totally filled in, with a small underground area allowed for toilets. 

The music was chart pop with a Latin twist, which isn’t my taste- all your Pitbulls and J-Los were on rotation. Eventually they were replaced by a live Latin band, which spiced things up momentarily. The atmosphere on the whole, though, was dull and samey, but at least it was busy, unlike most of the city.

And so, the rumoured revival of Peter St continues, but perhaps not for my generation this time…