Around Town: Saying bye-bye to the Blind Eye

Nostalgia was the order of the night July 24, as infamous Žižkov hideout Blind Eye bid adieu to its loyal clientele and prepared to close its doors - at least for the time being. The watering hole has been a landmark of the Žižkov landscape and a focal point of expat antics since its 2002 opening, but with the eight-year lease on the building expired, management says it's left with no choice but to shut the bar down.

A diverse cast of characters convened to reminisce while drinking down the last of the bar's liquor. Like any other night in Blind Eye, the crowd came in waves. The first enthusiastic revelers arrived before 11 p.m. to take advantage of the happy hour beer discounts. Unfortunately for the rest of us, the early birds drained all the kegs, forcing the tardy arrivers to get creative with cocktail combinations never attempted before, and hopefully, never again.

But the night wasn't all fun and whiskey-sodden games, as nostalgia got the best of the bar's proprietor and most faithful customers.

"Blind Eye has been everything. Mapped out on the emotional spectrum, it has been everywhere," reflected Noah Lucas, the bar's co-founder and manager.

Lucas, a native of Indiana, came to Prague almost a decade ago and says he immediately fell in love with the Žižkov working class district.

"I came here 10 years ago and checked into the Clown and Bard hostel in Žižkov. In many ways, I never really left Žižkov," he said.

Lucas' initial concept for Blind Eye was to create "a community center kind of place where we could get together and have lots of different kinds of activities, like cinema screenings, art openings, a photograph gallery and concerts."

The crowd present for the bar's closing party was testament to the success of Lucas' efforts, as guests from as far away as Finland turned up to pay their last respects. Mary, a Finnish Blind Eye regular, said the bar "symbolizes Žižkov."

"This is the end of an era. I've been here so often in the past five years that I'm like part of the furniture," she added.

While English has always been the language of choice at Blind Eye, Lucas rejects any reference to the bar as an exclusively American expat haunt.

"This is not an American expat bar; it's an international bar. Czechs have been coming here since the beginning to practice their English. English lessons are 350 Kč an hour, but at Blind Eye, they are free," he said.

Prague native Kristýna Holubová, a part-time DJ at Blind Eye, agreed, saying, "The atmosphere is amazing here, and the place always just had something special. It was just the place where everyone - foreigners, expats and Czechs - would end up. I met all my foreign friends here."

Closing a bar with so much history - and liquor - is not an easy task. The last Blind Eye revelers left at 10 a.m. Sunday, with not a drop left to drink.

However, Lucas insists that Blind Eye won't be gone forever, as he's scouting Prague to find a suitable comeback venue with a larger stage for concerts.

Taking one last look around the empty barroom with more than a hint of nostalgia in his eyes, Lucas chuckled, saying, "This place just wasn't built to house the fun we had."

Cillian O'Donoghue can be reached at
codonoghue@praguepost.com