Hive Cocktail Bar in Southsea goes in a new direction

The News, Portsmouth

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00:00My name is Bonnie Rodriguez. I'm going to be the new bar manager here. I've only actually

00:07been here for about a month now, and I think my job most importantly is to make sure all

00:12drinks follow through with our customers. I simply believe in the fact that nothing

00:17needs to be fancy, nothing needs to be out of this world. Everything needs to follow

00:21a certain tradition, a certain law, and it's dictated that way. We follow the same recipes

00:25on the bar for at least two decades, two centuries even, and it's followed through so far. I

00:30hope to bring all of that here, keep our customers happy. For as far as you can go, we will be

00:35serving beautiful amounts of old-fashioned, some martinis, as old-fashioned as we can

00:40go. And also for the customer set that love it, there's going to be a good selection of

00:44wines, a little selection of, let's say, beer that would regularly change, hopefully, but

00:50we're not have a mindset on that yet. It's seeing what people enjoy.

00:54Yeah, it's just the idea is like to bring the cozy place to the people here so people

01:01can come down here and enjoy the place before we go to a party, or somewhere else. For that,

01:07we have the idea to change the idea of the cocktail bar to turn to a lounge place, to

01:13be a more quiet place for the people so people can come down and enjoy the cocktails in their

01:19free time with family, friends.

01:21Yeah, so a bit more of a relaxing place.

01:23Yeah, a bit more food as well, is that right?

01:26Yeah, we start bringing food in one week, two weeks maximum, we're going to start bringing

01:31food, so those places will be full.

01:33There will be more variety available, obviously, as the future comes more. At the moment, it's

01:38just charcuterie and cheese boards that we're sticking to. But hopefully, the goal is to

01:42move on to maybe some nice desserts, some nice tapas, we'll see. We'll see what the

01:46future has for us.

01:47Yes, for the future, I have the idea to bring some kind of Brazilian specialty food.

01:54Okay, nice. What type of food?

01:56Finger food, but in Brazil. We build it on the board, so we have like a meat, like a

02:02barbecue. Like a cut, a nice cut barbecue.

02:06Okay, lovely, lovely, nice.

02:11I'm a growing boy, I get hungry soon.

02:14You've kind of spoken to regular customers, I mean, about the changes, are they excited?

02:19Yes, they are quite excited, most of the customers. We have some kind of regular customers, so

02:24we spoke with them and they loved the idea.

02:27Yeah, nice.

02:28Those regular customers.

02:29And obviously, you kind of hold a karaoke night every three times a week.

02:32That's true.

02:33Yeah, and is that going to be continuing?

02:36Yeah, yes, people like it. We start special on Wednesday nights, so we start to grow,

02:43create the crowd now. So for that, we want to bring two Thursdays, not only on Wednesday,

02:50because it's a good reaction for the customers. They love when they come down. It's like a

02:55base, we start to create like a kind of groups of friends here, so they start coming down

03:00to the Wednesday nights for the karaoke. So they come together, they just enjoy having

03:05the time with us. So yeah, that's the idea, to bring more of that to the people.

03:09Perfect. I'm surprised, but we have really good singers here.

03:13My biggest fear was to stand on the bar and listen to horrible singers here in karaoke,

03:17but you know what? I've been proven wrong, and I have never led astray.

03:21I'm gonna kick off my shoes, I'm gonna dance all night. I'm a freak on the dance floor,

03:27under the disco lights.

03:29We started this when the bar opened about a year ago, and it's gradually built, so that's

03:35why we offer more nights now. People generally, so generally I'd start off the night and I'll

03:43be singing until someone wants to sing. And you know, people can be a bit shy, so they

03:49want one or two drinks, and then they'll sing. But once they start singing, that's it.

03:54The amount of people, like you said yourself, oh no, I don't sing, oh no, I'm not gonna sing.

03:58The minute they sing, that's it. You cannot keep them, they wanna do another one, they

04:03wanna do another one straight away. And they just, because it just, because once they've

04:08done it, that fear just goes, and they can see everyone around them enjoying it, and

04:14so they start enjoying it, and it's just a really lovely atmosphere, it's really inclusive.

04:18Most people, when they leave, they just say how much they've enjoyed it, how much, it's

04:25the atmosphere, I think that's what a lot of it is what grabs people, it's just such,

04:31like these guys said, it's got such a warm feeling about here, the minute you walk in

04:36you feel comfortable. There's no, yeah, you know like some bars you walk in and you're

04:41kind of looking around, people are looking at you like, oh does my face fit? Everyone's

04:45face fits in here.

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