The Soprano House is an upscale G-Club on Sukhumvit Soi 26.
It is more up market than The Pent and there are way fewer white faces than The Pent.
The décor is very upscale and looks like the inside of an A-class casino in Las Vegas—dim lighting, a lot of soft mood lighting, and red velvet.
There is only one room with a large stage and an island bar in the middle of the room. Surrounding the central bar are tables raised above the central area. The main room is two stories high and ringing the outside of the room but on the second floor are private karaoke rooms.
The show alternates between a very good house band featuring a white female singer and a dance show featuring some of the girls working there.
The band was first class—several notches above and more professional than the bands at Hilary Bar or CM2 and played mostly older rock standards.
The dancers were also first class—tall, slim young girls wearing sexy outfits who really know how to move.
Last night there were about 60 hostesses in addition to the dancers in the house and they were uniformly knockouts–young, tall, slender, well made up, very stylishly dressed in upscale low cut tight super short cocktail dresses. There were not too many Issan faces, wide nose and dark skin among the girls. Most of them had the fine featured narrow nose Ching Mai look.
The girls featured a variety of looks, girls who were tall slender lithe and athletic, girls who looked young and innocent, girls who look young and nasty, girls with the pouty lipped spoiled princess demeanor, a couple of girls with brick house bods and big fake boobs, and some girl next door types. No matter what your taste, as long as you don’t have a fat, old, and ugly fetish, there were at least a couple of girls to match up with any normal preferences.
The girls stand inside the central bar or sometimes sit on the stools on the outside of the bar waiting and hoping to be called over by a customer to drink. Sitting at the bar is a little disconcerting for a westerner because the girls stand in a line three feet front of you trying to look casual as you elevator them from top to bottom. There were not a lot of customers, about a dozen last night at 11PM, so the girls are acutely aware that you are checking them out and that you are the only current possibility for some action.
Having hung around Thailand a bit, I left my western ideas of proper decorum outside and just sipped my drink and methodically, brazenly, and minutely inspected each girl from top to bottom without any indication of awkwardness from the girls.
In any bar in The World, I would have garnered a basketful of dirty looks and probably gotten arrested for felony bad manners but this is Thailand so my behavior was normal and no problem.
The place had a bit of a creepy feel because of the customer/employee ratio. There were probably about 3 servers, waiters, bartenders, managers, etc. for every customer and about 2/3rds of the seats at the bar and outlying tables were unoccupied.
This meant that everything you do is being eyeballed by the employees and service staff mostly standing around and doing nothing.
Personally when I am dancing like a nerd and grinding a hot chick, putting my hands in places they shouldn’t be, popping a woody because a supermodel in a micro mini is massaging my package between her ass cheeks, or squirming because a hotties tongue is cleaning out my ear, I don’t want 6 Thai guys within ten meters scoping the action.
I had a long talk with the hostess/saleswoman and got the full financial details.
A membership costs 32,000 THB and includes 4 bottles of liquor, 60 drinks and 2 free sessions in the private karaoke rooms. Members get a 20% discount on additional purchases.
If you are a non-member you can buy a drink for 500THB and pay full price for everything.
What makes The Soprano House a Place to Avoid is their girl policy.
If you want to have a girl sit with you, you must buy her 4 drinks for the first 40 minutes and buy one drink for each 40 minutes thereafter. The girl drinks cost 400 THB. This means if you see a girl who looks good to you and you want to talk to her a little bit and see if she has a fun personality or will be fun drinking with for the evening, you must pay 1600 THB just to talk with her for 40 minutes. After the 1600 THB up front fee additional 40 minutes are 400 THB.
What this policy does is force you to decide upfront whether you are going to spend the evening hanging with girl. I suppose if you are regular you get to know all the girls so you know which ones are fun before making a decision but for everyone else if they call a girl over and she is a sourpuss, a log, or has bad breath you are screwed.
At the Soprano House, the upfront fee kills the action. Unless you are willing to wastefully burn a shitload of cash, you have to look and make a spot decision for the evening with very limited information.
The policy is also going to make exploring the Soprano House lineup pretty expensive and time consuming. Realistically, you can only hang with one girl per visit so it is going to take a bunch of 1600 THB upfront fees to be able to go through the whole lineup and figure out which girls have a bad attitude, which girls allow you to do what with and to them inside the club, and which girls you want to get numbers from and try to arrange to meet with outside of the club.
Personally, The Soprano House’s girl policy makes it too time consuming and financially wasteful for me to want to be member or even stop by occasionally.
The policy at The Pent, the other G-Club I have visited is much more customer friendly. You bring a girl over, buy her one drink for 30 minutes. If you don’t like her you can send her away and try another one.
A second problem with The Soprano House is the mandatory 10% gratuity.
For these prices, a mandatory gratuity seems predatory and unnecessary in addition to having the usual negative effect on the quality of service.
Notes: If you are interested in reading about other places I think you should avoid you can read these previous posts.
Qbar:
http://www.2thebigmango.com/reader-submissions/2007/06/23/places-to-avoid-1-q-bar-by-bigbabykenny/
Conrad and Spasso:
http://www.2thebigmango.com/reader-submissions/2007/07/01/places-to-avoid-2-conrad-and-spasso-2-tg-scams-newbies-fall-for-by-bigbabykenny/
http://www.2thebigmango.com/reader-submissions/2007/07/05/places-to-avoid-2-conrad-and-spasso-part-2-by-bigbabykenny/
Streetwalker Supermarket:
http://www.2thebigmango.com/reader-submissions/2007/07/11/places-to-avoid-3-the-streetwalker-supermarket-behind-the-siam-hotel-by-bigbabykenny/
CM2 Disco:
http://www.2thebigmango.com/reader-submissions/2007/08/19/what-happened-to-the-cm2-by-bigbabykenny/
I’ll pass this along to one of the owners.
View all comments by bkk22
I never noticed the 10% thing. If it is true that is pretty weak. I don’t think I have seen that at the Pent or Forte.
I honestly never look into the hostess deal cause I go for Coyote girls only but are you sure this is right? 4 drink for 40 minutes? How can she drink that much?
What I love is the places like Thonburi plaza where you pay like 250 baht for her to sit with you for 45 minutes or an hour. Seems cool.
Will be back at The Resort soon ans will get the details. I also think Sopranos has a 20k baht membership as well. Most of the places do.
View all comments by smitty
Hi Ken
I appreciated your report.
At the risk of appearing a tad presumptuous here, [Those who know me understand that risk] but as one who occasionally passes the (admittedly) magnificent Soprano House venu in my jaunts to and from work) might I suggest that, in a “town like this during times like these” and in view of the huge cake dropped into a joint like The Soprano House in a “town” like BANGKOK that one might make at least two or three visits before taking this horse out back for her last ride ;-?
If staff appeared a mite over-attentive and one detected a soupcon of pressure, one might conclude that on perhaps just that one occasion one was sapeaking wit’ da wrong Soprano.
I’m usually wrong about these things tho’ so, that’s just, like, my humble thought on the, um, idea of writing this off as a place to avoid.
View all comments by thongsuk
Smitty you tart. You’re a mountain-stream dry-fly kinda guy if there ever was one
View all comments by thongsuk
My one and only trip to Sapronos was preceded by great anticipation due to the rave reviews I had read about the place. The actual experience left me cold, and would have put me off of G-clubs entirely if I hadn’t wandered into the Pent a couple of months later.
I pretty much agree with Kenny’s assessment, except that the lineup of girls didn’t appeal to me at all, I didn’t like the selection of music being played by the band, and I really disliked the flip-flop between the live band and the dancing girls; it was schitzophrenic. The way the girls sat around for inspection was remeniscent of the fishbowls in the Soapie massage places.
Overall, I agree with Kenny… it’s expensive and not really very enjoyable. It’s already on my list of places to avoid.
View all comments by werewolf
I’ve noticed that Sopranos runs hot and cold, unlike say the Resort which is always running hot. I’ll always have a soft spot for Sopranos since it’s the first G-Club I went to in Thailand (when it was still known as orbit). I think kenny’s description is pretty accurate, although the membership quoted was a little high. I think the latest one I went on in was 30,000 for six bottles and 75 drinks - they’re willing to haggle a little bit on the price these days it seems.
View all comments by go go groupie
This is not your scene. This is a nightclub for rich Asian businessmen and the prices are purposely designed for that purpose to keep away curio seeker. There are similar clubs in both Western and other Asian countries that charge even more exorbitant rate. Complaining about Soprano House prices is like complaining about people paying USD5000 for a hotel room.
View all comments by Chaiyen
I went here about a year ago and they didn’t have the 4 drinks in 40 minutes rule so must be new. I sat with a hostess girl for one drink and she was a bit of a dud. My friend who was the member only bought his coyote girl one drink as well.
Overall though, agree with most of what bbk says here. I also remember feeling uncomfortable with too many employees staring. Much like when I’m shopping at Robinson’s.
btw, I just added the guide page at http://guide.2thebigmango.com/thailand/bangkok/bars/hostess/sukhumvit/the-soprano-house/
View all comments by pmmp
gg - that is my feeling. some times it is rocking and other times it is not. I called one of my friends who works there last night and I think the drink deal for the hostesses the way BBK describes it is incorrect. Hard to beat the resort though.
cy - totally disagree with u. It is more expensive than the norm and it is just not for rich asians. It is for anyone who can afford the drinks, the membership and the dress codes. so the bar is higher but it is not that exclusive. I also think you can dicker more than u think for the membership deal and it really is only expensive if you are paying for the hostesses. which I almost never do.
pmmp - thx for adding the link.
View all comments by smitty
When I entered the club and was assigned a salesman, I explained that I was visiting several G-Clubs to decide which ones I wanted to buy a Membership at.
I told the saleslady I had already been to The Pent and planned to visit The Ritz, Forte, and Narcissus before making a decision.
The saleslady explained a little bit about the membership as she escorted us to our seats and when we sat down at the bar and ordered drinks she sat down, explained everything fully, and I was able to ask her some questions. Her English was very good and I didn’t have any problem communicating with her.
If the information is wrong it could be because of miscommunication problem but when she explained the 4 drink for the first 40 minutes policy I was surprised and questioned her closely about it.
The only conceivable miscommunication is that the you are obligated to buy 4 drinks for 160 minutes up front instead of 4 drinks for the first 40 minutes. Either way it has the same effect.
The only other possibility is that the initial package offered was part of sales job.
I visited the Pent again last night and had a similar conversation with one of the salesladies there.
Initially, she only offered a 50,000 THB membership but as we talked and I didn’t bite on the 50,000 THB membership she mentioned there were 30,000 and 20,000 THB memberships and that she would be willing to extend the time to use up your credit from one to two years.
She also explained The Pent charges a mandatory 10% gratuity but only to non-members which means the member discount is actually 30% because members avoid the mandatory gratuity.
At The Soprano House, I became disinterested in a membership as soon as she went over the girl policy so maybe she would have offered a better deal if the negotiations had gone further.
If someone knows someone who works there and can get better information, it would be great.
The BigMango Blog is pretty widely read. Maybe it would be worth the time for someone on the The Soprano House sales staff to provide an “official” answer.
The girl lineup at The Soprano House is pretty awesome and I would be happy to hear that you could actually explore and enjoy it in a fiscally rationale way.
@Chaiyen
My experience is limited as far as the G-Clubs are concerned but I agree with Smitty that Money Rules at these places.
From an American’s point of view, at least one who lives in a major city, the pricing is not that expensive. It is not that hard to spend $300 per person or about 10,000 THB at mid level restaurants and venues for a night out in New York, Los Angeles, or Chicago.
A mid level ticket to a concert or play costs about $150 USD or 4800 THB plus parking etc. in these cities
I think of these clubs more like Las Vegas casinos.
Sure most of the big gamblers are well dressed and many of them are Asian but if some hick slob from Nebraska rolls in willing to bet like a maniac, the House will kiss his ass as enthusiastically as they are tossing the salad of some Thai General blowing his share of the money stolen from last weeks drug bust.
BigBabyKenny
View all comments by BigBabyKenny
bbk - the ritz is not st mortiz
no club at narci - I think you mean pegasus?
I would also try some of the thai ones like sherbet, resort and caribbean as well.
I think u get the program. I have no experience with regularly pulling of the hostess variety there but it must be possible.
View all comments by smitty
Nobody likes to be mis-identified or clipped.
I wonder why some businesses here feel so compelled to push their model through the edge of the envelope.
Clubs get empty (or run hot and cold) because they have failed to properly addressing all segments of their market.
View all comments by thongsuk
One thing I have never quite understood is what do you actually talk to these girls about that is worth paying her for? Can she really be that intellectually stimulating?
I mean, she is a 19 year old Asian dancer, and I am a 40 year old white stock broker. What the fuck do we have in common??
“Do you think the earnings quality of Thai banks is affected by the US sub-prime problems?”
“How was the snow in St Moritz this year?”
“So then love what do you think about King Kev back at St James?”
“Is the reverse sweep really effective against off-spin?”
Sexy young dancing girls should be doing just that – dancing. Preferably with little or no clothes while I watch and chat with friends.
View all comments by MSB
@MSB: So true.
But why are so-o-o many guys in such a rush to declare that the girl is a Uni chick ? What’s THAT all about?
View all comments by thongsuk
MSB,
Once you pay for the girl’s drink, she is obligated to stay with you for the allotted time–either 30 or 40 minutes depending on the club.
I am a little unclear on this point but I think the girl must stay with you until you formerly release her by telling your mamasan you are done with her.
While she is with you it is like a GoGo bar where the limit is what the girl sets.
Generally this means you can put your hands almost anywhere. The girl will dirty dance and lap dance with you. You can put your arm around her waist and snuggle up to her etc.
The other night at the Pent, a friend and one of the Coyote dancers he called over drank for two hours.
During that two hours his hands were inside and outside every inch of her.
The dancer got between his legs while he was sitting on a stool and gave his package a rubdown with her ass, grabed his head and suffocated him with her breasts, tried to jack him off by rubbing his package with her knee and thigh etc. etc. etc.
Since the girl has an incentive to stay with you for as long as possible, most of the girls I see are very proactive and initiate or encourage these activities.
Because the club relies on repeat customers, all of the GoGo bullshit that goes on in the Nana and Soi Cowboy GoGo’s with girls accepting a drink and running off, unwanted ugly girls gluing themselves to you, leather faced mamasans begging for drinks, etc. is absent
The girls, because the customers are mostly men who live in Bangkok, also rely more on repeat customers so they are concentrated on not only making a guy want to have them with them for the night but also come back to them on future nights.
BigBabyKenny
View all comments by BigBabyKenny
msb - all each to his own right? as stated before I never deal with the hostesses. only the dancers. and they dance. almost constantly and in between their dance breaks they come and hang with u and drink and chat. I speak some thai. I like chatting with them. its fun - or I chat with my mates whilst I hang and watch them. not really a big deal.
ts - some are students. I have been with them when they get their outfit on in the morning and I help pin their school metals on. Hardly think that is a sham. however not all of them are and some lie about it but it is easy to find out who the students are and who are not. generally the ratio of students in the coyote dancers is higher.
bbk - u make some points but they do not all let you get all over them. actually I find it quite rare for the most part until you get to know them more. but there are some spunky ones who get crazy.
I think of the go-go scene like shooting fish in a barrel. can get old some times. the member clubs with coyote girls are like being in the barrel without a gun and you have to chase it down more. which I enjoy. the quality is higher and they tend to be more fin girls to take out and be seen with.
back to the hitting on all cylinders approach…
View all comments by smitty
bbk - ok fair enough if you get a tommy out of it.
ts - lol… urban myth that all Uni girls are cute.
s- sure I am not criticizing, I just genuinely wondered what you talked about. The usual “where you stay” crap or something more meaningful?
View all comments by MSB
are u into girls?
did u go to an all girls high school?
if u wear underwear under your tailor made uni skirt what kind of underwear is it?
are u wearing any now?
do u live with mom and dad or have a roommate?
is the roommate game as well?
have u been with pmmp?
we are talking short song breaks so I usually don’t have time to get into discussions about the yen carry trade…
View all comments by smitty
thanks smitty, I get the picture now.
Basically I have trouble talking to girls becasue I am a boring cunt.
View all comments by MSB
I just finished writing on another thread that I think girls value punters who are jai dee & sanuk above all else.
One reason I have enjoyed the Pent specifically has been that there are a couple of dancers there that make it a point to get me relaxed and laughing on every visit. Like MSB, I can be a boring old cunt, so I get a kick out of the girls who can make me laugh, or as usually happens at the Pent, get me up dancing with them (on the floor, not the table top).
Sanuk & jai dee in the girl work for me too, and the atmosphere just doesn’t compare to a go go bar. It’s much more relaxed & enjoyable at the one club that I frequent than in any go go bar I’ve been to in the past year.
One Bangkok old-timer (18 years here I think) went to the Pent with me last month and he said that this was very much like go go bars used to be.
View all comments by werewolf
4 drinks in 40 minutes?
Who is she George Best? Oliver Reed?
Kinda Agree with MSB, i doubt the poor girl would wanna talk about the 3LB bloodbath i had the night before or the upcoming UFC PPV I have bets, or the shocking form of my beloved Tottenham Hotspur
Maybe i need to brush up on my social skills
View all comments by Penfold
Guys, the Pen and others based on same concept is just waste of money and time. Even you spend allot of time, means you may still need to back to your hotel alone. Much better to “barfine” a girl from one of those many massager parlor bangkok have to offer , like i do
never had any bad experience from it. This girl is polite, funny and sexy 
But just keep in mind not every girl from massager parlor is available for take away. Many of those “supermodel” or Penthouse model they start working from 18 pm - 12am. And they charge from 3200-5500 baht for 1 hour and 30 min inside the establishment. Thats mean from 18 pm - 12 am will allowed them to take 4 customers max. If u want to barfine them, u need to pay for, eks if she is a 4000 baht model, u need to pay 4000 x 4 = 16000 to the parlor to bring she with you. But its a catch with that, the money u pay its only for her companion until 12 am midnight. Yes you need to pay separate to the girl to keep her with you for the whole night. But some girl dont stay with you for a whole night even u offer them a shit load of cash. Yes those girls got attitudes not like their sister from go go bar. But if u find one who are willing to stay over night , u may need to pay her 10-20000 baht beside the fee you paid to the parlor.
Yes is a expensive experience but its worth every single bath u spend.
View all comments by Mighty Mouse
Hey guys
Bottom line is, whatever works for you is cool. I don’t judge other people and their pursuits. Below is just my personal opinion…
If I’m out having a fun night, then spending more is no problem. I can get the same gentleman’s club experience in the developed world, with the erotic dancing, and teasing, but going home frustrated & alone just doesn’t work for me, so I haven’t done it. That seems like a waste of money to me. Why put yourself through that?
I’m also with the poster that said you won’t have an interesting conversation with a girl from any of these kind of places. Sure, the kinky fun kind of conversation, girl chat, etc., but not something substantive. Need girls with regular jobs and regular lives for that. Trying to get one from the other would be a mistake. Lots of people do that by misreading what is and isn’t possible from another person. Overlaying your needs onto someone who can never satisfy them.
Some of the Thai girls are very pretty. If you’re after the very best looking, then like anything else in life, you’ll pay top dollar. Some people realise as they grow older that getting 5-10% better experience for 50% extra cost is a bad bargain; the little better doesn’t add much to an already thrilling experience, but lightens the wallet appreciably. The membership clubs sound a lot like they add a bit of the thrill of the chase, but is the chase all the thrilling? I always like a chase where I catch the girl in the end, otherwise it just leads to disappointment and frustration. P4P is hit and miss. This seems to just add extra layers of cost into the bargain.
There’s no point saving some baht to go with someone you’re not that attracted to, but equally why pay up for an experience that’ll likely be just as good as with someone else, bit prettier (but the other girl was pretty enough) and pay thousands for the benefit. 10-20000 baht to take out a massage girl? Gotta be kidding me. Someone’s being mugged! A girl may rock your world at the right moment, but so can many others so why be taken advantage of and overpay? You can get someone you find attractive, have some fun, and be generous with the tip because you’re making smarter choices upfront. You win, she wins. She’ll come back for more, probably cut her regular rates for you, and you’ll have a better time. Cuts down the hit & miss on P4P. Unless you’re addicted to a constant variety of women, in which case you’ve made your bed and are forced to keep jumping thru the hoops.
Petey
View all comments by Petey
p - I think you have generally nailed it - however I think some of the coyote girls - not all - are normal girls going to school who are fun to talk to. Not sure how a normal girl who also went to school but works at an office could carry on a conversation that would be much different. Especially if one can speak to them in Thai. I also find they are a little more worldly than the office girls which makes for a little more fun.
I think people also assume one is dropping hordes of money on these girls to get anywhere with them. Sure - someone is but I have not and I seem to getting along with them fine. I think there is just a lot of assumptions that most people fall back on but yet they have spent very little time in the clubs themselves. People then hear the word hostess and club and all their assumptions kick in.
I like the chase, the kill, the p4p, the “normal” girls and so on. That is what is great about bkk. It is all here. The coyote girls are just another fun layer - but not the only layer. I find people get pretty one dimensional over time as they enjoy bkk. I am trying to expand my views of it all over time as best as I can. g clubs is one way but in no way the only or even preferred option.
The massage example that was mentioned is insane but funny thing is someone is willing to do it. Just like someone calls escorts and overpays for them. At the same time though that might be the only way someone ever gets with a real hottie.
I hear stories from coyote girls while i sit in bed with them about guys throwing huge money at them. Some laugh it off cause they don’t want to sell themselves. Once again my strongest reason for how attitude wise these girls are different than most p4p girls cause they are not on the block all the time. Some are though and some take the money.
its all good though. There is no way everyone could hold similar opinions about the best ways to experience thailand and the women.
View all comments by smitty
I second the view on Soprano. Went there for the first time (I am a regular Pent member). I did not like the money-grabbing attitude. The girls demand a drink as soon as you just look at them, it is the next thing that comes out of their mouth after they give you the name. I started chatting with a couple of PR girls and they both ask me to buy them drinks. I hesistated for a moment (only because I was just interested in one of them, and was trying to figure out how to do that politely) and they both immediately turn around and leave - without saying another word. Then I got a drink for a coyote girl, but it turned out she was with a regular customer, so as soon as she emptied the glass she ran off. At the end, when I was getting drunk a bit, Mama-san did a real hard sell on the membership. She further “softened me up” by having that coyote girl that I liked come back to grind on my hip, stick her tongue in my ear, etc. at the same time as Mama was giving me the sales pitch. It was so obvious it was actually entertaining. I dont mind spending some $$, I routinely spend 5-10k at the Pent, even as a memeber, but I do not like being treated too explicitly as an ATM machine.
View all comments by voyager
just fyi:
http://guide.2thebigmango.com/thailand/bangkok/bars/hostess/sukhumvit/the-soprano-house/
View all comments by smitty