Nana Plaza’s oldest bar is no more. Lucky Luke’s is now Cheeky, a beer bar promising “sexy snacks”.
Cheeky Beer & Sexy Snacks opened Thursday in the space that had been Lucky Luke’s beer bar since 1980, long before go-go bars took root in the former Nana shopping mall. While the name is gone, the format remains the same as it was for all but three of its 46-year history.
Cheeky, Kino & K-19 Share Ownership
As first reported in this week’s Redlight Report, the space was bought in January by the Russian owner of the Kino and K-69 go-go bars on Nana Plaza’s middle floor, Cheeky brings a beer bar back to the right-side of the entrance to Nana Plaza after three-and-a-half years when it operated as marijuana dispensary Lucky Luke’s Tiki Joint.
The grass shop’s glass windows were removed – although, weirdly, the glass doors remain – and the layout again resembles Lucky Luke’s Tiki Bar, the iteration of Lucky Luke’s operated by the Stumble Inn Group from 2015 until it was sold back to Nana Plaza’s landlord in 2022, which swapped out beer for ganja.
Tiki Bar always had a kitchen and it’s in use again, albeit for a very seven-item menu of “sexy snacks” that includes chicken wings, cheese sticks, other deep fried offerings and and something called “sexy nachos” which, the staff is correct, includes peanuts.
Seating in the new beer bar will delight those who enjoy sitting on the rail at the former Big Dogs (now part of Stumble Inn). Both offer views of all the ladies (and ladyboys, if that’s your thing) going to work each day.
For the Russian bossman, Cheeky offers not only a new, low-cost revenue stream but serves as a billboard for his go-go bars, with large signs and arrows directing people to Kino and K-69.
RIP Lucky Luke’s
For old-timers, the end of the Lucky Luke’s brand is the end of another storied chapter of Nana Plaza history.
Lucky Luke’s was the first bar in Nana Plaza, back when it was a shopping arcade. Opened in 1980 by a Belgian mercenary believed to have been named Luke, the bar originally was located in the front of Nana Plaza where Kickoff and the currency exchange booth currently are.
The bar opened early and stayed open late, offering both food and beer to tourists, particularly those staying at the Nana Hotel. For some, like this merchant sailor whose old-time blog remains online, complete photos from 1993, it was a place to start the day and pass out at night.
The Belgian mercenary disappeared into Thailand and, as Nana Plaza morphed from mall to “the world’s largest adult playground”, Lucky Luke’s changed owners but stayed open in the prime location. Due to its highly visible location, it could never be a go-go bar, so it was either beer or weed.
Its purchase by the Stumble Inn Group gave that owner the monopoly on Nana Plaza’s entrance, which was complemented by opening of the Nana Plaza Beer Garden after Pharoah’s and two other ground-level beer bars were demolished in 2010.
But Lucky’s Luke’s Tiki Bar always was the ugly stepdaughter in the Stumble Inn family and the group offloaded it after Covid when Thailand’s marijuana boom exploded and the plaza’s owners wanted to open a weed shop in Nana.
The boom, of course, has gone bust and the Tiki Joint never caught fire. It’s now Cheeky, so go get yourself some sexy snacks. But hold the peanuts!
