Final Call Friday for Bangkok’s Cheap Charlie’s

Photo: Cheap Charlie’s Bar / Facebook

BANGKOK — Friday night is the last chance to swig cocktails and inexpensive beer at a boheme alley bar in a sweaty sub soi off Sukhumvit 11.

Cheap Charlie’s Bar will say goodbye tomorrow to 35 years as a Bangkok institution with a small farewell party of drinks, light food and snacks.

Long before it was swallowed up by high-end nightlife venues popular with foreign visitors, the bar was founded in 1982 by brothers Charlie Budkajang and Satit Budkajang.

The pocket-friendly bar, festooned with animal antlers, toys, knick-knacks and memorabilia is the kind of kitsch and gauche rapidly vanishing from the capital in favor of bland, character-free polish.

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It’s still looking for a new home.

Cheap Charlie’s is not the only venue to go: Almost a dozen other venues such as Moghul Room, Stash Bar, The Alchemist, Charley Brown’s and Tapas Cafe will bid farewell as the small, privately owned soi is bulldozed for a development project.