Abyss a-Go-Go on Pattaya Walking Street closed after only 79 days.
Chinese-backed Abyss, which opened on Chinese New Year Feb. 17, turned off the lights and locked the doors May 7 after owners ran out of money before negotiations for a sale could be completed.
The failure of Abyss to make it even 12 weeks despite its prime location in the middle of Walking Street was, at once, both shocking and unsurprising. It’s demise was widely predicted, but few expected it to come to quicky.
“I don’t care about Abyss. I’m not involved in running it. It’s probably going to fail,” a minor investor in the project said just days after its opening, prompting the question of why put in cash if you think it’s going to crash.
“It wasn’t even a go-go bar,” said another Walking Street bar owner. “The layout was terrible.”
3rd Time Not Charm for Abyss
Abyss took over the space that previously had been the ill-fated Okeanos go-go bar sandwiched between Bliss and the closed Ka-Boom, Before Okeanos, the space housed the Chinese-owned Panda and Gold go-go bars, both of which went bust during the Covid shutdowns.
In late 2023, Chinese investors revived as Okeanos – a name drawn from Greek mythology, where Oceanus was the primordial Titan god of the great world-encircling river – but as a social club for the investors and their pals. That lasted a matter of weeks.
Abyss was launched by another group of Chinese and Asian investors and fronted by Kingman Chen, a former manager at nearby Dragon a-Go-Go, and “Danny Farside”, a DJ and former Windmill Club and Eden manager.
Before Abyss’ opening, Farside wrote in the now-deleted Abyss a-Go-Go Facebook group that the two upper floors would be “like a gentleman’s club, with comfy seats for you and ladies to sit close together, drink and party together.”
That space was impeccably done out with those who saw it saying it looked better than the go-go bar itself.
Farside pushed the new bar aggressively online, calling Abyss “the next step in Walking Street’s evolution” and promising a high-energy opening night with drinks flowing and dancers performing.
“The hottest girls, the best music and the best laser & light shows in town,” he wrote on Facebook.
Hype Never Matched Reality
The hype never matched the reality. Not only did the beautiful upstairs space never opened, the decoration of the main go-go was never completed, leaving walls nearly barren. The stage was almost as barren on the promised “hottest girls”.
Like many go-gos not named Pinup, XS or Shark Club, Abyss struggled to get dancers and those who did trundle on stage weren’t supermodels.
Poor Design, High Prices
Like Okeanos, the go-go bar’s design was a major factor in Abyss’ demise. Owners placed a square stage smack in the middle of the ground floor and surrounded it with a row of sofas, each of which had a massive table that bosses hand planned to use as satellite stages. But the bar never drew enough women to do that.
Instead, the tables eliminated prime seating area and forced those who did sit down to slide far into accommodate others. At the far end of the bar, owners retained two rows of stadium seating from Okeanos.
Lighting was also an issue, with the bar deemed too bright by many who visited.
Prices also put off customers. While a happy hour was instituted late in Abyss’ short life, its prices for anything other than bottom shelf spirits were 50% or more expensive than other Waking Street go-go bars.
Financing Planned Doomed Abyss
In the end, however, it was a poor financing plan that doomed Abyss. Owners spent about 5 million baht to acquire and likely another million baht or more to renovate it. Walking Street insiders said, however, that investors paid little or none of the key money, promising the landlord to pay the full amount after opening. Monthly rent was a crushing 400,000 baht.
The problem, however, was that the financing plan covered only the acquisition and opening of the bar, with no cash left to actually operate or market it. Pleas for investors to put in more cash fell on deaf ears.
In mid-April, an ad appeared online offering a 50% partnership in or outright acquisition of Abyss. Specifically, the ad said the Walking Street venue was a ‘fully operational, revenue-generating nightlife asset’ with four floors, VIP rooms, karaoke and agogo systems, active licenses, and an existing staff and management team already in place.
The listing described the bar as a ‘cashflow machine’ in a ‘frontline position’ at the beginning of Walking Street, while offering either a full buyout for 6.8 million baht or a 50% partnership stake for 5 million baht – which would place the value of the business at 10 million baht.
Asked about the ad April 18, Kingman denied the bar was for sale, saying the ad was a mistake that wasn’t supposed to be posted online and that owners were looking for partners, not selling out.
By May, ownership became desperate to sell and one group expressed interest in the property, with Abyss ownership saying they had enough cash to stay open until the end of May. Two days later, they called the prospective buyers back and said their cashflow now would last only two days.
The buyers declined to act and Abyss closed for good on Thursday.
