Eden Striptease Bar

by Wim Kronenburg
(Statenlaan 26 Den Haag Nederland)

Avoid the stripclubs in Budapest !

I just recently returned from a trip to Budapest. I and 4 friends from the Netherlands, were walking on a busy street at 23.30 PM.

We approached some people to ask for a nice bar, since it was too early for a Club or Disco.

Two girls advised a bar just steps away from the center and we walked all together to this recommended bar which seemed, instead of a regular bar, to be a Striptease Bar called “ EDEN” We thought it would be harmless to check it out with the five of us and it might be fun for one drink….How stupid...

This shitty place EDEN looked cheap decorated and we were the only people there, besides about 6 strip girls, most weren' so nice looking , so we didn’t even pay any attention to them.

After a while 3 of these “girls” came over to sit with us.
We sat down and had ordered 5 beers and 2 glasses of white wine, for our “ guides” who recommended this bar, but the pushy waiter/bouncer also brought 5 shooters we didn’t order.

It appeared as if it was a complementary drink of the house…how naïve! Instead of the glasses of wine the waiter came back with 2 medium bottles of Hungarian Tokaji wine.
I asked him, “How much are drinks”, since I realize the nature of these businesses and I wanted to pay right away, but he gave me a look of contempt and walked away.

One of my friends ordered an other round of beers, but we received 5 beers and 3 more medium bottles of wine. A few minutes later out of the blue he brought 5 Red Bull for the ladies.
I turn to my friend who is the more conservative of us and he says we should probably leave and ask for the check now. I walked to the waiter at the bar/counter and asked for the bill.

The bill comes and it is something like 332.000,- HUF which is something like EURO 1.400,- !!! This for a 30 minute visit. I called my friends, since I wasn’t sure if my eyes had let me down, but my friend's eyes popped out of his head and he couldn't believe it.

Imagine if we would have asked one of the ugly girls to dance for us.
The price of the 5 wine was 300.000,- HUF.
I told the manager who stood behind the counter that we did not order all these drinks and that he’s overcharging. He argued aggressively that we had.

I reminded him that I wanted to know how much drinks cost prior, but as you can imagine he had 3 drink lists with all different prices.
At this point I knew we were in a jam, because he called with his phone and suddenly, there were at least 5 large bouncers there, the door was locked and we were just waiting for him to pull the knife or the gun.

We were able to come up with a little more than 2/3 of the money. We had to empty our pockets and he looked in the wallet of my friend, who had a bank card. They held us hostage, saying we'll take your friend outside to get the money. He forced us to extract another hundred thousand and bail us out.
Without getting into further details, many Strip Clubs in Budapest are traps!
We were pissed off that night, but I hate to imagine what would have happened if we could not have come up with the extra funds.

This place EDEN systematically rip’s off tourists, because they did this so well organized. Basically we were robbed, threatened and held hostage by some Hungarian criminals.

Check the site of the American Embassy in Hungary:
Victims of personal crimes, such while in Hungary are strongly encouraged to report all such incidents to the police. The Hungarian National Tourist Office has a special, 24-hour telephone number for tourists who become the victim of personal crime while in Hungary.

Personnel with foreign language capability, including English, are on duty seven days a week to give advice on how to file a police report and to help to find the nearest police station. This telephone number is: 438-8080.

There is a Tourinform office that provides service in English and in German and is located in one of Budapest's busiest tourist areas: Sütõ u. 2., 1052 Budapest, open daily 8-20. Tourist police service is also available during the opening hours.