It was one of those festive nights in Lagos where you expect every nook and cranny in town to be buzzing. The Island was no different offering fun seekers an array of exciting places they can go to for maximum fun. Not to be left out, my friends and I decided to visit one of the busiest night clubs in Lagos aptly named Sip. It is located on Akin Adesola Victoria in the same location that has housed other doomed Joints such as K’s Place, Club Extreme and Planet 44.
To be fair, Sip Lounge is basically a stylish upper class bar built to cater for no more that 100 people by my estimates. The interior aesthetically rich with furnitures, paintings and glass walls well blended in colour and texture to present a very classy opulent feel. As you enter the club to your right is the first VIP section providing a panoramic view of the entire club for fun seekers with deep pockets. To your left is the sitting area with sits arranged beautifully such that it should only sit 30 people. Further into the club are two other VIP sitting area with the first parallel to the open sitting area and the other right on the top of the second VIP section as you access it by climbing the stairs.
I have mostly enjoyed myself the few times I have been to Sip. The music is fantastic and rich with a nice blend of local Nigerian and foreign music. I also like the calibre of people who visit the bar at night. They are mostly young with impressive sense of style and fashion, moderate character and full of fervour. It is hard to distinguish who is who within the crowd especially of you are a novice as almost everyone look impressive and classy regardless of whether you are rich or not.
The waiters and waitresses are also very courteous and quick to serve out drinks. Their drinks and food are also what you expect from a night club in Lagos. A budget of N20,000 will get you a bottle of Vodka and some Cranberry to go with it. Their food is also nice, particularly the chicken wings.
As a Night Club where you want to get your money’s worth is where things start to look quite bad. Due to the limited spaces in the club, it quickly feels up which inadvertently is a sign that a club is banging in Lagos. More people keep trooping into the club so much that before you know there is little space for you to even stand. A common feature at the club is seeing people hang by the stairway blocking the path of people who are either trying to get to the third VIP or going to the bathroom. Unlike some clubs where standing can be a fanciful way of having fun, Sip offer no such solace. You basically hold your drinks, glass and bottle while standing or basically just drop it on the ground.
To mitigate that, the club provides you with a bar stool. So for example, when you buy a bottle of Champagne or Vodka, they put it in this metal like stools (see picture) hand the classes over to you and place the mixers, well, on the ground. A friend who saw this for the first time lamented furiously likening it to cheapening of his personality. It really can be an ugly sight particularly if there are more of you with similar stools within the same limited space. Parking at the Sip is what you can call super ugly. Due to its location fun seekers park on the side of Akin Adesola facing the Bar Beach. If you are lucky, you can find parking space in any of the banks located close to the club. No matter where you park expect to take a long long walk.
So next time you get to Sip late or forget about making a reservation you will be sipping while standing.
