I feel a little confused about Düsseldorf nightlife since our well-traveled guide told us he'd be…read moretaking us to some of the best nightlife spots he's ever been to and 11 of the dozen different places he took us to were literally the worst places I've ever been to in my entire life. This was the best of the bunch.
I think our guide mistook our excitement for traveling with actually being able to handle ridiculous, youthful nightlife experiences, of which we most definitely could not.
None of us are 'club people'. I've been to a club twice in my life, both times for terrible, forced female bachelorette bonding experiences, where I was largely ostracized by the group, called a 'firecrotch' by sleezy club-goers as they grind on some overweight man who looks like a Venezuelan-dictator version of Larry Flint in an ill-fitting white suit, and forced to withstand the whole experience stone-cold sober not only because I couldn't afford the over-priced drinks, but also because I was literally invisible to the bartenders.
My idea of a fun night out involves great beer, a cozy bar with board games, and being home and in bed with elastic band pants by 11pm. Here, we didn't even meet to leave our hotel until 12:30am, which is insanity to me... because I usually reserve the hours of midnight to 6am to doing really ridiculously important things on Pinterest. This going out at 12:30am thing... Pure insanity.
So anyway, we came here after we were informed that we were either too ugly or too old for Nachtresidenz. Whatever. Hausbar has nice enough bouncers. Actually, they were the friendliest we'd encountered in our very eventful night out, though they do try to make getting in more exclusive than it actually is.
We did a loop, we found the DJ who had a bottle of vodka with a lotion pump on top of it so he could squirt shots into his drink between songs (klassy), a sort-of dance floor with a bunch of people who were too cool to dance -- also where some young gentleman maybe thought I worked there and tried to check his coat with me, or maybe just wanted me to have an extra jacket, I'm still not sure--, and eventually a few seats at the bar. Only caveat: The bartenders are either oblivious to anyone not trying to touch them or blind to anyone over the age of 23. Sort of like a reverse dog whistle, only instead of how only dogs being able to hear the whistle, the bartenders can only hear the requests of patrons under 25. Some sh*t luck for me.
I literally waited with 50 Euros plastered to my forehead for 35 minutes before someone came over. It was annoying up until about the 10-minute mark, then it became comical. Then one of my male friends managed to get serviced... and was promptly ripped off and given change for a 10, when he paid with a 50. It took 15 more minutes to get that same server back, have her roll her eyes, and then give him the correct change that she knew she'd cheated him in the first place.
If you're looking for a cocktail here, hopefully you're not looking for anything more complicated than a Redbull vodka or rum and Coke, which we found to pretty much be the pinnacle of cocktails in the Düsseldorf nightlife scene. We tried explaining to our guide about REAL cocktails. Drinks that required more than 2 ingredients and a garnish and the look on his face was blank. Is that not a thing here?
For clientele, this place had the best, or at least most tolerable crowd in old town Düsseldorf. Best behaved for sure and also a mix of most entertaining while also not being annoying.
The DJ, though a little tweak-y with his crazy vodka with a hand sanitizer squirt top bottle, was actually pretty good. He played all the summer hits and at a place like this, or anywhere on this strip, thats all you can really ask for.
I'm by no means an expert on the Düsseldorf scene, but as I said earlier and from what I experienced, Hausbar was by far the most tolerable and entertaining we'd experienced.
