New Beautiful bar, but it disappoints

The noise in this newly reopened grocery whose name I won’t divulge is a recipe for making a normal human being mad if he’s keen on having a meaningful conversation with a fellow drinker.

However, in the course of trying to get stuff for this column, the response I receive from my grocery sources is this: drinking place isn’t worthy the name without lots of ear-splitting noise.

Cases of poor hearing are reportedly rising in Bongo; I suspect loud music in bars has something to do with it!

Says this young fellow at this newly reopened grocery: “Loud music is what attracts most drinkers, including me.”

By the way, I’m reproducing the quote by piecing together what I conclude is what he has said because of the background noise.

Upon my arrival here, I had to walk past a group of five drinkers sharing a table. They were all regular Forest patrons, a grocery I’ve traditionally liked since it’s nearest to where I call kwangu.

Aging is accompanied by a good dose of cowardice, so being a fellow who was born years before uhuru, I can’t be said to be young. It means, I’m nervous of taking my nighttime drink at joints from which I’ll have to walk kilometres before arriving home. This grocery isn’t far from Forest, meaning it’s also near kwangu, so I tell myself: how about sampling it today, although rumour has it that it’s yet to be officially launched?

I had visited the place as renovation took place and concluded there’d be a touch of class in it. It’s expansive, and there’s ample space between one table and another. No plastic chairs.

So, my expectations are high—sharp attendants, great kitchen service, etc. Silently played music which allows customers to chat without having to shout. Kumbe wapi!

The place is as noisy as they come, Bongo style! It’s interesting that revellers, most of them Forest defectors, are seemingly very comfortable.

An old Forest associate I find here is apparently having lots of fun at his noisy table of six. I decline when he invites me to join his crowd.

At his table, they’re all engaged in some animated conversation. It’s interesting to watch them from a distance, for everybody seems to be talking at the same time!

It means this is a conversation in which nobody hears what anybody else is saying, but that doesn’t seem to worry them. If it did, they’d have complained to the manager—assuming there’s one—to reduce the music volume.

Maybe I’m being too fussy. If most of the customers are happy with noise, who are you to mourn about it? Drinkers, it’s generally said, visit bars to get drunk, not to have serious conversation and exchange ideas as it used to be in the proverbial Year 49.

Quiet, piped music, says this other fellow seated next to me, is old-fashioned.

Okay; that’s all you say to him as you pay for your third and last beer and head home.