Global Nightlife Trends: Bukowski’s - Prague

As part of our Global Nightlife Trends series, we spoke with Glen Emery, owner of Bukowski’s Bar in Prague. Glen told as a little about his bar, located in the heart of Prague’s bohemian underbelly, Zizkov, and shared his insights on nightlife and drinking trends in his city and how they’re evolving.

1. Tell us about your bar? How would you describe it? Who visits it?

Bukowski’s is a small cocktail bar in the bohemian/workingman’s district of Zizkov bordering on the old town of Prague. Originally Bukowski’s was a bar I opened and owned in my hometown of Vancouver BC with a couple of friends from there. We ran it for 5 years and then sold it. It became quite popular so I thought I would open one here in Eastern Europe where at least most of the population knows who Charles Bukowski is. The interior looks more high end than the sleazy LA bars that Bukowski hung out in. We liked the name because it evokes in many that you can be an absolute drunk AND function or even become rich and famous. “How I drank myself to the top.” We have adorned the walls of the bar with photos of famous alcoholic literati usually in some sort of drinking repose: Lowry, Nin, Hemingway, Thompson, Thomas, etc etc as the list goes on. Visitors are a mixture of Expats and Czechs mostly from the neighbourhood.

2. What trends are happening within nightlife in your city?

Unfortunately, Easyjet and a few of the other low end airlines are frequenting the city now for the last few years with planes bursting full of fat, drunk football lager louts on stag parties and rolly polly red cheeked hooch hags on hen parties all coming from some obscure small towns in the English midlands. They are amusing to watch for about 3 seconds and then you must exit whatever premise you are in and search for a basement that they have not infected yet. Outside the center, young Czechs are opening up cool bars and clubs and they range from cool electronic clubs to shit-grinning yuppie bars or gay bars full of horny cute young women (makes no sense but in this town never ask why!)

3. Any trends in drinking you’ve noticed at your bar recently?

People want exotic high end rums. Also the Mojito outsells everything. Czechs have very different tastes to the expats. Czechs are more adventurous, expats more conservative. The Czechs are still experimenting while the foreigners know what they want.

4. The Czechs love their beer. Is any new beer going to be the next big thing?

Well SAB is launching Pilsener Urquelle as its International flagship brand and Inbev just bought Anheuser Busch. This will be a battle royale because very soon the Czech ministry of Agriculture will sell off the Czech Budweiser brand and Inbev will buy it at any price just to alleviate all of the brand litigation in Europe and the rest of the world. Then the Bud marketing machine will kick off. Maybe will not work because the beer is not very good and is made mostly from rice which goes against the German Rheinheitsgebot.

5. Where is your bar? And what night would you recommend we visit?

The bar is on Borivojova 86, Praha 3, Zizkov. Weekends are a little more wild than the weekdays as in any bar in the world so depends whether you want to party with the amateurs or chill with the pros.

Thanks, Glen!

[images courtesy of Rory Wilmer]