For 23 years a blue shophouse on Yaowarat Road held Phuket Town's blues scene together, six nights a week, until the room closed for good.
Rockin' Angels Blues Cafe held the corner at 55 Yaowarat Road for 23 years, a shophouse packed with rock and blues memorabilia where Patrick, a Singaporean expat, fronted the band six nights a week. Lonely Planet and Phuket 101 both filed it as Old Town's essential live room.
The venue announced its permanent closure on its own Facebook page, writing that after 23 years it was forced to close as wealthier operators took over Old Town. This page stays up as a record and a pointer to where the music went.
Every wall carried memorabilia, guitars, posters and decades of photographs, and the stage sat close enough that the crowd became the second act. Tripadvisor reviewers called it small, friendly and cheap, in roughly that order.
Musicians treated it as a clubhouse. Crowd members joining the band on stage was the house tradition, not the exception.
Expats, traveling musicians and Old Town regulars shared the room with whoever wandered in off Yaowarat Road. The mix was the appeal, and reviews from a decade apart describe the same scene.
Its 65 Tripadvisor reviews skew warm and specific, the signature of a place people actually loved rather than merely visited.
What to order
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What people ordered
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The real product
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The cover charge
