Hidden gems don't advertise themselves, or so says Chris Catto-Smith.
The proud and perpetually beaming Aussie is referring to his cabaret bar Checkinn99, a throwback Nana diamond which has featured in the "Top 20 Hidden Gems In The World" on TripAdvisor two years running — all without the use of any paid advertisements.
Despite the borderline-acceptable and crumbling appearance of the place, it must definitely be doing something right to find itself featured as the setting for Bangkok noir fiction novels and be listed in many Western travel guidebooks.
If you can get over the dark and sketchy-looking alleyway, you'll be greeted with a classic wooden bar, somewhat musty air and kitschy Christmas-style lighting. It still looks exactly the way the Peace Corps people saw it in the 60s, minus the busty girls in short, skimpy dresses.
Proclaimed as one of the oldest bars in Bangkok, Checkinn99 (originally called The Copa) has always been the face of expat nightlife since its inception in the 1950s, long before the Nana area notoriously became known for catering to Vietnam War GIs.
"It was the first multi-storey building in the Wattana area and vacant plots were all around it," explained the current owner. "It was quite risqué — a naughty out-of-town entertainment place that wasn't in anyone's way."
It remained a bustling, active place in its early days, made popular by live performances from 1965 onwards. However, its name, The Copa, died along with the first Thai owner after he was "accidentally killed" during the 1978 coup. A handful of Danish businessmen reopened it as a restaurant, but "old customers who came looking for the old place didn't want a Danish restaurant with violins", laughed Catto-Smith.
After a certain period of adjusting, the watering hole merged with another popular 80s club in Silom, Club 99m, and it became known as Checkinn99. Even with its invitation-only policy and a dwarf bouncer who shooed you away if you didn't look like you descended from the Vikings, Checkinn99 enjoyed a successful 30 years when it was ran by the Danish consortium.
"It was run like a Danish bar, a lot of revelry, fun and the guys were hard-drinking. At that time, it was really just a bar with hostesses, not so naughty. It was very popular," he said.
A picture when the club was first called The Copa in the 50s.
How the old-school Checkinn99 remains popular now is in itself a noteworthy accomplishment. You could say almost nothing and everything has changed about the bar since Catto-Smith bought the doomed business for 72,000 baht in 2011 when bankruptcy came calling for the Danish stakeholders.
"All of a sudden, these hostess bars were out of fashion and boring and new nightlife came in," Catto-Smith said, thinking back to the old days when he and his wife were just two faces among the customers that came for the live Filipino cover band. "New places opened and people's tastes changed but they didn't change this place at all. Everyone else was making changes while this place became corny and the customers just fell away."
Apparently, modernising and renovating wasn't the only way a club could survive.
"It was the whole girlie scene that kept a lot of people out," Catto-Smith said. "Having live music and hostesses together was a conflict because people couldn't talk to the girls because the band was too noisy and people who came for the band didn't want to be around girls hustling for drinks. Couples don't come in if there are hostesses."
While little of the place's quaint charm and character changed, all the customer-soliciting and "hi-handsome-man-buy-me-drink" scene was discarded in order to turn around the reputation of the club. Coupled with no cover charges, affordable drinks, well-made steaks, the family-like service and the place's saving grace — an extremely fun band — the bar slowly emerged again to become a solid go-to place for tourists and Baby Boomers, the latter a crucial group often ignored and without any substantial haunts that cater to their tastes. Chances are the boss, old couple or mum and dad that you bring to Checkinn99 won't be uncomfortable with the place and should enjoy what feels like stepping into a time warp to the 70s.
Add on book readings, talks, jazz festivals and now, even musicals, the venue has become something of an art platform for the expat community. Even the owner joins in, specifically playing the drag roles for a laugh.
"Checkinn99 is a modern Silk Road oasis where painters, poets, writers and musicians converge to relax, chill and share a creative zone," crime novelist Christopher Moore said. "It is a one-of-a-kind place where artists are encouraged."
Even if Checkinn99 is sandwiched right in the middle of a red-light district, between Sukhumvit Soi 5 and 7, this is, nevertheless, an integral part of its survival — the racy glow pulling in tourists from all around the world. If the whole scene is done right, it can prove to be a magnet for the country, like Catto-Smith has witnessed from his former years working in Singapore.
"I lived through the decade of Singapore when it was raunchy and sailors from all over the world would come to Bugis Street for its fabulous trannies and ladyboys," he said.
"But then the government closed it and the country went through a process of getting sanitised. But over the last 10 years, the government actively got back a sleazy area called Duxton Hill. They renovated all those old bordellos and rented them out on higher rents and encouraged hostesses in those bars as a government-run place for tourists." Mysticism and exoticism is indisputably Thailand's selling point, and the double-edged charm of our nightlife is something of a perpetual dilemma.
"We get a lot of couples coming in who are shy but want to go to a go-go bar," the owner, who also occasionally plays tour guide, said.
"I take them to the good ones and they'll talk about it for 10 years. Or they'll go to a safe ladyboy bar which is tourist-friendly and not aggressive. For me, that's an untapped part of Thai tourism, but we don't really talk about it because unfortunately there are so many bad ones that give everyone a bad reputation.
"It would sanitise Bangkok if these places closed down, but you would lose the edge of Bangkok. The thing about Bangkok is it's crazy and mixed up. If people want to go to easy places, we all could just book into a Club Med resort."
Moore is in agreement that it is indeed at these funky and bizarre places where the memorable lifetime experiences happen.
"If Checkinn99 wasn't in a sketchy neighbourhood, artists wouldn't feel at home. Art emerges not from hi-so penthouses but from the back alley," he said.
The entrance to Checkinn99.
The Filipino house band is hugely popular.
Many of the staff, like Loong Wat, have been working at the bar for over four decades.
