Kum Bak Klub

So, I am not going to lie, this place is the diviest dive bar I’ve ever been to. It is also in the seedy underbelly of the Tenderloin. However, if you’re going to partake in a TL pub crawl, you need to know what you’re getting yourself into. No pansies allowed!
So, honestly, I don’t remember how expensive the drinks were. I had a lot of good luck last night that involved me not paying for most of my drinks… and I had, like, ??? drinks.
Now, this is certainly the neighborhood bar. They will automatically know if you do not belong but will be cool with you if you’re cool with them.
Also, there are copious amounts of free food laying around on the bar. If sober, I would realize that eating food from a bar is a bad idea… but I was clearly making a lot of bad decisions last night (I, um, invited my ex along half-​way through the crawl). I’m not just talking peanuts or Chex Mix… I mean, actual «food» ranging from cherries, to lychees, to microwaved lumpia. Now, honestly, the lumpia was pretty terrible because it was freezer-​burned and microwaved. However, I am certain that my willing consumption of it is to blame for my surprisingly non-​existent hangover today.

Let me join the chorus here and say that Kum Bak Klub IS NOT CLOSED!!! This was bar #3 with Ashley M and Dupa B and I think I would have noticed if they were closed.
This is a fairly sketchy bar on a very sketchy block. The front wall is glass bricks with Kum Back Klub planted by the door in sloppy free hand.
The bartender had a face like an angel but she had some bad news for us, the taps were broken and the bottled beer selection was terrible. I had an MGD because I hate Heineken and since I was not going to be happy I figured I’d save a dollar. The beers come with free Lo Mein and fried chicken, with a little liquid courage in me I ate the food and it wasn’t terrible.
I’d come back to Kum Bak if they fix the beer taps because I’m not drinking MGD even if it’s only $ 2.50 comes with free food and is served by a pretty bartender.

Not for faint of heart… getting there late at night was interesting –overpowering smell of urine and looks from those who claim street as their turf… and the bartender with the face and voice of an angel .
And another surprise — no beer on tap! And the offer of free food — deep fry chicken or chow main… Tom braved chow main and is still alive!
Definitely must be back place — this time will try after midnight… classic dive.

the kum bak klub is NOT CLOSED!
i like to hit up the klub on tuesday evenings. it has a warm comfortable atmosphere and bargain cocktails and beers. also there are often free snacks and pool is only a $ 1. can’t beat that!

I totally disagree with Robert A. The owner is indeed from Yemen, and he is a very sweet man. The bartenders are students from Thailand, and they are not at all in the business of selling themselves. The food is just cheap Chinese food, but they are always very generous with it. A lot of older Asian dudes hang out there, but they are always really nice. They have rad music on the jukebox, even though I don’t know what language it’s in. The décor is seedy, just the way I like it, but fabulous. The people there are truly the nicest. Not like going to the yuppie and hipster bars where everyone is trying WAY too hard to look good, and outdo everyone else. These are just nice people, and cheap drinks with a quirky aesthetic, and the bartenders are beautiful young women!

This bar represents a formula that’s becoming all the rage in the TL.
In the old days a bar upgraded by making improvements, not anymore.
Now you just hire pretty young Asian bartenders, supply some barely edible food and there you go.
Doesn’t matter that the Kum Back Klub (faintly suggestive name) is owned by a gentlemen from Yemen the perception they’re aiming for is of a Korean Hostess bar, the same thing is being done at any number of older TL dives.
The Kristi club on O’Farrel being a prime example.
Years ago the Grasslands in Chinatown was like this, the girls could not have been old enough to work there, subsequently it was packed nightly.
It’s going to be interesting to see how far this phenomena goes.
Don’t get me wrong the girls are cute but a little paint and clean bathrooms go a long way.

There’s a special corner for me in Hell because of the Kum Bak club.
Bar-​wise it’s fine. cheap beers, pool table, friendly patrons, ramen and random food. Sometimes we’d get drunk come here and eat ‘ba-​lot’ or something which I understood to be duck-​eggs that had been fertilized; so it’s actually a cooked fetus or something. Not really as shocking as it sounds when you eat it in the dark. A hard-​boiled egg with a slightly pâté-​like texture in parts.
pretty good.
Had it a bunch of times. Maybe eight or nine. Then yesterday i went with my buddy, had a beer, and they turned on the lights really really bright mid-​chew because it was half hour until close.
that’s when i saw it.
Broken eggshells. something brown and soft mixed with feathers. There was blood. a yolk with veins. i think it was looking at me. is that a little beak in my mouth?
i wanted to die.
That night I had a horrible dream about Nazis wanting to kill me. Guess I deserve it.
Until next time.
Note to reviewers: NOT a Korean place. neither the staff nor the patrons. Yemeni-​owned, Thai/​Cambodian/​SE Asian staffed and served. thought i’d clear that up.

parking is difficult in this hood at times. the owner is muslim and doesn’t drink alcohol. very poor drink selection, no dark beers. forgot if they had draft or not. there’s a pool table, a juke box, a gaming machine where you can win monies if you match at least 3 in a row.
there are ususally 2 tv’s on, usually to sports events.
the attraction here is the cheap beers, the cute bartenders, and friends. the bartender will cojole patrons to buy them a drink, $ 8.
seldom see any cocktails sold/​mixed here.
since most patrons only drink the cheapest beers, the owner has advised the bartender to sell more snacks. peanuts/​popcorn are on the house if the bartender feels like it.
it’s a dark loud place inside. not recommended unless you know someone inside.

Somehow I was expecting some kind of clip joint or a gentlemans club, but what we found was a Korean dive bar? Maybe, but the beer was good, snacks on the bar, cool bartender/​owner. Lots of food options, ramen noodles, and some other noodle options. I’m pretty sure we had a good time at this bar!

The pinball machine is for decoration only. Fuck that. I also spilled ramen all over myself. I think this was our 6^th bar and at this point, I can’t remember being able to actually taste what I was consuming. Is this a hostess bar? In anycase, won’t be returning.

For some reason, though this was not the last of the nine bars visited the evening I found myself here, it is the one I have the least recollection of.
I recall, vaguely, many older Korean patrons, attractive bartendresses, fellow Unilocalers eating food, a nice owner and indoor smoking.
I dont remember much else.

Glass bricks form the entire exterior of the Kum Bak Club. It’s name is scrawled off-​center and painted in amateur freehand form. Above the glass bricks, a powder-​blue awning forms a garish contrast with the bar’s immediate surroundings. Nonetheless, the exterior of the Kum Bak Club makes for one of the most intriguing storefronts of any watering hole in the Tenderloin.
My first visit to the Kum Bak Club was on a cold Friday night at around 9:00PM. The first thing I noticed was the music… a nonstop barrage of Asian duets, mostly consisting of a male baritone trading off verses with an ear-​piercing female soprano. The sound system added insult-​to-​injury, warbling slightly in the manner of cheap speakers being pushed way past their intended capacity. Needless to say, the music was loud… not nearly loud as a South-​of-​Market dance joint, but several orders of magnitude louder than anything I’d seen at any dive in the Tenderloin proper. The interior is old, but better maintained than most. Somewhere within its walls lurk history, but the prevailing décor and the majority of the patrons don’t allow it to be conveyed. Still, the place is better maintained than most, giving off a feeling of being more broken-​in than worn-​out.
Beer and Liquor selection is woefully inadequate at most Tenderloin drinking establishments, but perusing the Kum Bak Club’s wares will reveal a decent selection of beer on tap along with a fairly impressive selection of top-​shelf hooch. Even more surprising was a small wine rack that sported a fair number of decent selections.
Typical of a Tenderloin bar, the crowd was 100% male. A group of six or so younger Asian men sat at the far end of the bar. They beamed smiles while loudly conversing in a far-​eastern tongue, regularly breaking into fits of booming laughter. Two seats over from me was an older man in a gray beret who was asleep on the bar. To my right were two older Black men that represented my best shot at conversation with the locals… but the ear-​splitting volume of the music made idle chat a distant possibility. A «Triple Play» pinball machine sat back towards the wall, and an older Caucasian man seemed to be permanently affixed to it. Two adorable young Asian women tended bar… both were surprisingly friendly, one even asking me for a sheet of paper from my notebook so she could do an origami demonstration.
A good selection of drinkables, an interior in decent condition and an amiable bar-​staff make the Kum Bak club stand out from most of the Dive-​Class bar’s in the lower Tenderloin. The only negative point is music that’s crudely amplified and way too loud. It’s the place to come if you’re slumming the ‘loin and Jonesing for something better than bottled beer or well-​liquor cocktails… but if you’re in the mood to chat up the locals, be prepared to yell over the music.