It’s 11pm on a Friday night at Bliss, a nightspot near the World Trade Center popular with foreigners and live music fans. The bar downstairs is crowded and animated with the conversations of 20 customers, while Pan Africana is drumming up a raucous beat on the stage upstairs.
The lively scene is hardly what one would expect from a bar that’s in danger of closing, but that’s exactly what will happen if Barry Smit can’t find a new owner by the middle of next month.
Smit is moving to Taitung to open a guesthouse near the beach. He says business at Bliss is good, but it’s time for him to leave, try something new — and give his liver a break. Still, he would hate for the place close, and since his lease expires on Oct. 18, he’s willing to accept less than his NT$1 million original asking price.
“It’s just great fun having a bar — it’s just great bloody fun,” says Smit. “A new owner would be walking into a business that has already proven itself.”
Bliss started life in 2003 as Chocolate and Love. Smit renamed the bar, remodeled the stage and upgraded the sound system when he assumed full ownership four years ago.
Among the perks of running Bliss, he says: “you can drink at cost price,” “make more money than teaching,” and “girls come after you.” Smit says he would stay on a few weeks to train a new owner.
Gregory Dion Russell, who books bands for Bliss and other nightclubs, calls Bliss a “major musical institution” for foreigner bands. “Bliss is the only live house to offer a 100-percent ticket return to bands,” he wrote in an e-mail.
Abandoned Machines, Barry’s Band and the Pinetop Surgeons play tonight at Bliss; tomorrow it’s Sinister Sound Syndicate. Shows start at 10pm. Bliss is at 148, Xinyi Rd Sec 4, Taipei City (台北市信義路四段148號), tel: (02) 2702-1855, www.myspace.com/blisslivehouse.
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