Aeroplane Bar

Housed in a dingy disused Russian Tupelov, the Aeroplane Bar "Letka TU 104" is the most unusual bar in town. The aeroplane bar opened in the 1970s as a restaurant for the communist elite and their dining companions. Now it's a seedy late-night bar with an eclectic clientele.

The entrance is a steel staircase with a locked security cage at the top. Ring the doorbell and the barman will let you in. The original aircraft seats have been re-used, there's a small dance floor and a DJ's desk in the cockpit. The playlist consists of fairly ordinary '80s pop, interspersed with occasional gems. You can order your overpriced canned beer or watery soft drinks at the bar or wait for table service.

The aeroplane bar is open from 9pm to at least 6am, Monday through Saturday, and tends to get busier later at night, when people have had enough drinks to think the plane is a good idea. Water and soft drinks are 23Kc, shots of bourbon are 60Kc and the time travel back to the early 80’s is gratis. The bar is very poorly ventilated and fills up with cigarette smoke quickly.

The novelty of it being in a plane is really the only reason to visit, and with that in mind quite an enjoyable night can be had. It's better to take your own friends though, rather than arrive alone and hope to find people to chat with. Highly recommended for fans of the bar scene in Star Wars.

Bar Letka Tu-104
Legionářská 6
Olomouc

Belmondo

Belmondo is upstairs from the Irish bar, The Crack, in the historic water barracks building. Entry is from the Třída Svobody side, upstairs to a large hall with a generous dance floor in its centre. The rest of the space is taken up by long bar and low seating booths, some with wooden benches and tables and some with sofas and armchairs, but all designed for a clear view of the action on the dance floor. It’s an excellent layout for a nightspot let down only by the tacky decorations.

Belmondo is a very popular dancing place with students and young Olomoucians. It’s open three nights a week; Wednesday night is more subdued, and there is no cover charge for anybody. Friday and Saturday nights are busier, and the hefty bouncers might request a 50Kc admittance fee from guys, which ensures that girls make up the vast majority of Belmondo’s weekend clientele.

Unlike most other bars in Olomouc, you have to pay for your drinks as you receive them. The wait staff are generally pleasant and professional and it doesn’t matter too much if they don’t speak English or you don’t speak Czech because it’s too loud to hear anyway.

Belmondo is open Mondays and Wednesdays (student night) from 20-04.00 and Friday and Saturday nights from 21-05.00

Belmondo
Mlýnská 4,
Tel: 777 799 607 ‎

Blues Bar Garch

The best of Olomouc’s suburban bars is looking a bit tattered these days but still has a good atmosphere and more bar-games than you knew existed; darts, air hockey, table football, billiards-with-no-pockets, and even sewing machine races, although the last might see you asked to leave.

There’s a decent fondue menu; either bread and croutons dipped into cheese or eight different flavours of spiced chicken fried in oil. Occasional live music too.

Garch is a rambling underground bar on the corner of Mozartova and Litovelská just outside the centre of Olomouc. Everyone knows it just as Garch, but the full name is Galimatiašův Archiv. In Czech to speak Galimatiaš is to speak rubbish, so I guess the name of the bar means something like “The Archive of Junk”.

A smaller room at the back has a table that looks like it was once part of a coolroom door, about twenty six-inch steel meat hooks, some fake trees and a functioning air-hockey table. The air hockey is 40Kc an hour- the staff will mark your drinks-ticket with your start and finish times. The table football works exactly the same way, but is calculated at 50Kc per hour.

Blues Bar Garch
Mozartova 761/3
Tel: 585 414 098

15 Minut Club

15 Minut Club is a student club run by students with a regular program of dance nights, concerts and events during the semester.

Set in a cavernous basement beside the Morava River down near the pink and green Orthodox church, the space can accommodate a lot of people and a lot of different events.

There’s a large room at the far end of the venue with a small stage where bands and DJs will perform. There’s a large space for dancing there but the ceiling is low so don’t jump too high!

The centre room is filled with booths for a place to chat and rest from the music. At the front entrance is the big bar. It’s normal in this club (as opposed to most places in Czech Republic where you’ll get table service) to order drinks from the bar.

You can find info about 15 Minut’s program of events on their website, www.15minut.net, but you can almost bet on there being something happening there every night except Sundays during the university semester.

15 minut club
Komenského 31
Tel: 777059150

Meex Café/Club

On the corner of the square closest to the Arion fountain, there are two parts to Meex. The Café is on the ground level and the Club is underground. You enter the club via the passage to the right of the café.

The café allows smoking and serves an average array of café items such as

The club is small but usually attracts a good sized crowd of punters in their 20s to mid-30s. There are lots of mirrors for you to make sure that your hair is still frizzed, your boobs are sufficiently bulging and your eye make-up hasn’t faded under the strobe lights.

The club also has a Japanese restaurant that specializes in sushi. You can sample the lunch menu between 12 and 2pm where you’ll receive a miso soup and sushi plate or hot meal for 95 Kc. There’s a late afternoon special, All You Can Eat Sushi for 280Kc from 15-17.00 and then main menu starts again. It’s not so bad either. The lunch menu probably won’t fill you up but it might appease your cravings for sushi.

The music is standard europop fare and is unlikely to inspire masterful dance moments but you can’t be blamed for trying.

Metro Chill-out Club

Metro Chill-out Club is a small, comfortable, underground place with lots of sofas and a penchant for electronic music. The bar is kind of hard to find. The entrance is set back from the footpath in a dark archway and the only clues are the illuminated Pilsner beer company sign and the green and orange zebra-striped door if it happens to be swinging open at the time.

Sometimes you’ll have to ring the doorbell to get past the zebra door. There are some clever artistic flourishes in the design of the bar, but they’re obviously from a few years ago and are starting to look a bit worn in places now.

Metro’s relatively small capacity helps to give the place the slightly exclusive feel of a club. The staff are fairly pleasant: just make sure they give you your change and don’t think everything is a ‘tip’. The music is what you might expect from a “chill-out-club”; laid-back groovy electro-trance. During their busier times, they often have DJ’s playing on weekends. The patrons are usually fairly easy going and casually dressed.

The beer on tap is Pilsner; half-litre glasses are 25Kc. It’s supposed to be open until 7am, but don’t be surprised if the sun is well up by the time you walk out.

Sometimes you meet some real dogs there, but on a good night, it’s one of Olomouc’s best bars.