The bar beside the band.

A Friday at KQ, from six until the band stops

Six o'clock: the chairs go out, the sign goes on, and the hall is cold enough that the first people in from Soi Diana stop at the gate and put their hands in their pockets. Min is on the till doing yesterday's numbers. Save is pouring the first pint of the evening into a glass that will sit under the tap for two minutes while it settles, and there is nobody yet to drink it. The stage is dark, the toilets are next door, and the nine bars between us and the gate are mostly staff. This is the best hour to see the room and the worst hour to judge it.

Half past seven: the row of tables along the stage edge is gone, and the row behind it is going. The regulars who come on Fridays come at this time because they know this. A couple in their sixties from Manchester have the second table from the steps, which they have had most Fridays since the bar opened, and a group of six Australians who found us on Google an hour ago are being walked to the two tables beside them by May. The screens above the counter have a match on with the sound off. Nobody is watching it yet.

Eight: the house lights drop, the drummer lifts both sticks, and the hall turns round. The first set is the one the band plays to pull a room that is talking into a room that is facing the stage, and it takes about a song and a half. By the third song the couple from Manchester are mouthing the words and the Australians have stopped looking at their phones. Our tables are three metres from the drummer and to the side of the speakers, which is why the singer can see them and why they can hear each other.

Ten: the second set, which is the loud one and the one the band is proudest of. The hall is full to the middle bars. The counter is standing room behind eight stools, and the counter is, on balance, the best seat in the building at this point in the night, because from behind it you can see the whole hall and the band at once. Bank is doing three things and talking to somebody about golf. A request is shouted from the second row and honoured in the third song.

Midnight and after: the late set, to the people who stayed. This is the set where the room sings, and where the songs the band saved for it get played. The hall is thinner and warmer. The couple from Manchester have gone home, the Australians have moved to the counter, and somebody has ordered the last pint of the night, which is settling under the tap while the guitar solo goes on longer than it needs to. We close at three. The band stops before that. The gap between is ours.

What the bar is and what it is not

It is one bar of ten under a roof, the last one on the right, with about forty seats and a counter along the wall. The band is the complex's and plays for the whole hall; we are the bar that sits beside it. The Guinness tap is ours and is the only one under the roof. The food is cooked across the soi by Lee's Diner and Craft Cottage and comes to the table on a plate. The staff are Min, Save, Bank, May, Annie and Rita, and they have been the same six since the start.

It is not a go-go bar, a hostess bar or a sports bar, and it is not on Walking Street, whatever two directories still say. Nobody sits with you uninvited, nobody rings a bell at you, and the only thing anyone will bring you that you did not ask for is a second bill if you ask for one. There is no cover, no minimum and no dress code past a shirt, and the counter takes every card and Thai QR, which some of the bars in the hall do not. The complex is air-conditioned from the gate to the stage, which in a city built for the heat is most of the reason a stout works here at all.

If you want the lounge, Gatsby is up our soi. If you want the pavement, Soi Buakhao is a hundred metres away and every bar on it has a table outside. If you want a band three metres away and a pint that took two minutes to pour, this is the seat, and the page you are on is its address.

Two things regulars say, that we would not say ourselves

One wrote that it is "the best bar I've found in Pattaya," which is a large claim in a city of a thousand bars and we have left it in his words. Another said it was "too cold to stay for more than two drinks," which is the air-conditioning and which we have not fixed, because the alternative is Pattaya in April. The reviews page has the rest, including the ones that are not five stars, read closely.