Ruin bars: Szimpla Kert

I usually plan my Friday nights from a week ahead! What about you guys? I’m sure in all of our lives Friday nights hold a special place, they are by far the most looked forward to night of the week. So it was natural that I would plan this Friday night from a week before as well. I have just finished my biophysics exam and for your information Biophysics is one of the toughest subjects to pass in our university and basically half of the students fail. Anyhow I did well for the exam and I was determined to show myself a good time. I rung my friends and told them that it was time we went to “Szimpla”. Now I know what you all are thinking: Saba can you go back a little bit and tell us where the hell is Szimpla? Well of course! Just give me a second.

Szimpla is the single most famous ruin bar in all of Budapest. What is a ruin bar, you ask? I literally didn’t know myself until I went to Szimpla! Ruin bars are the type of bars built in abandoned, old houses; they have a sort of vintage style to them and people really dig that. As for Szimpla, the place is so famous that it’s impossible to ask anyone in Budapest where is Szimpla and have them not know the answer. Okay that might be a slight exaggeration but seriously everyone knows where Szimpla is and everyone has been to it at least once. So you can see why I was so tempted, I mean it’s so famous in Budapest and if I were to live here I had to go to all these well known places. Anyhow I searched it up on the internet and saw that the bar had more than 4000 reviews. Can you believe it? 4000 man, that’s crazy. I started reading all the reviews and gosh you guys, everyone was raving about this place, I was even more and more tempted to go.

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(One of the many bars inside Szimpla Kert. Cool right? )

I told my friends about it and some of them had already went to it, they were like we don’t get all the hype and it’s kinda overrated but I was determined to go see it for myself. We went quite late at night to avoid the long queue. We reached there at around 1 am and waited in line for only 10 minutes but I was told that if we came at 11 or 12 am, the line would take up to 1 hour of our time. We were checked at the door cause they don’t allow us to take drinks inside and they just told us to open our purses and show them but they definitely strip searched the males. Not too extreme but I guess it is still kinda extreme. The guards were not rude but they didn’t smile or anything.

Anyhow the moment I walked in, I needed just a couple of seconds to take it all in. I mean I was overwhelmed by the design, the colors, the strange noises but mostly importantly the strange people. The whole place was extremely bizarre, I don’t know how to describe it. You felt out of place there, something like Gulliver on Lilliput. My friend gave me that "I told you so" look and we decided to discover the place further on. First things first it was extremely crowded: you couldn’t stand in one place without being pushed or having to make way for people to move. The designs were intense but I would say really cool. I don’t really know much about art but this place had this eerie hipster vibe to it and I was digging the place, emphasizing on the word “place”.

There were numerous bars inside and I would definitely say that they were all unique and entertaining to even walk by. The first bar that we saw had this huge shishas and people were blowing smoke all the way making it impossible to see what’s going on. Again the bar was filled with bohemian, hipster and other types of paintings and objects. I will upload some pictures and you guys can look for yourselves.

The music at this bar was just too loud, and too bizarre, it wasn’t a kind of music you could dance to, it wasn’t a kind of music you could chill with and overall I would have suggested a more toned down type of music to go along with the theme of the bar. Even though you couldn’t dance to the music, you could still find a few carefree souls dancing their problems away. We decided to go to upstairs, there were a few more bars up there. Each room had a different style, different chairs, different lights and a whole different vibe and I kinda really dug that. It was like you felt a whole different way in each room. Since you all know I’m definitely a chemistry nerd so it comes as no surprise that this bar was my favorite bar. I mean come on just look at the name and the design, it was called lab bar! How cool! (Okay I will go geek out somewhere else, don’t judge me). The other rooms were crowded as well and the corridor is so narrow that we had to wait until other people passed so we could move to other rooms.

The drink prices were not cheap at all, I think they are more expensive than other bars across the city but that’s expectable given how crowded and famous the place really is. So I didn’t try any drinks but I did look at the menus and they sure as hell looked tempting. Another thing that I realized was that, Szimpla wasn’t a good place to meet people at all. That wasn’t what I was expecting at all man. I went in with the mindset that I’m going to meet a lot of different international people and make some new friends; that definitely wasn’t the case. The bar was too loud and no one really was in there to socialize or maybe that’s just the vibe we got. We soon left the bar and went to some other places. Szimpla was just not the place that we wanted to spend our whole night in.

My advice to you:

Definitely do pay a visit to Szimpla because well everyone’s gotta see it for themselves and judge.

If you go during the week it’s much better because first of all you don’t have to wait in line half as long or wait half an hour for your drink to be ready. Secondly the possibility of communicating with other people and meeting random strangers is more. Thirdly you can actually enjoy the place and soak in that vintage vibe of theirs. I would definitely go once during the week to see the difference.

If you go on weekends, go late so you don’t have to wait in line for about an hour or so; specially now since Budapest is getting cold and you don’t wanna freeze in order to get into a bar.

I hope I didn’t ruin your image of Szimpla and I hope you guys do get to go and visit it for yourselves. It is definitely a unique experience and I would suggest that you judge it for yourselves.

As usual, get in touch with me, I’d love to know you all.

Cheers!

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