A neighbourhood rock and roll bar pinched between two buildings on Hout Street, loud since 2012.
Aces 'n' Spades has called itself a neighbourhood rock 'n roll bar since 2012, and Cape Town Magazine's profile confirms the city took it at its word. The room hides pinched between two buildings on Hout Street, three blocks from Bree Street's cocktail polish and proudly unrelated to it.
The walls carry the canon: Ramones, Mike Ness, Dylan. The Firm, the hospitality group behind it, keeps the formula untouched because it works.
One TripAdvisor reviewer titled their writeup self described dive bar, and that self description is accurate marketing. Come for volume, stay because the room means it.
The space is a long narrow shotgun room: bar down one wall, stage wedged at the back, band photos and stickers covering everything else. Smoke machine haze and red light do the decorating after 10pm. When a band plays, the whole room is the front row.
The list is beer, bourbon, and shots, with local lagers from about R35 and doubles that respect a working crowd. Nobody publishes a cocktail menu and nobody asks for one. TripAdvisor regulars praise exactly this: a great rock bar that knows what it is.
Cape Town Magazine calls it a second home for the city's coolest kids and chicest cliques, but the base crowd is musicians, tattoos, and long serving regulars. Friday Night Live gigs are free and pack the room weekly. Wednesday karaoke hands the mic to amateurs and air guitarists, also free.
The dive bar Cape Town's city center needs, kept loud and honest since 2012. Free bands on Fridays and karaoke on Wednesdays settle the value argument before the first round lands.