Your friendly neighbourhood No Sleep Club
This Keong Saik Road space keeps it relaxed for modern, communal vibes
“I DIDN’T want the word ‘bar’,” says No Sleep Club co-founder Juan Yi Jun, explaining how the shophouse space was named. “I liked the word ‘club’, because I wanted it to be about people.”
No Sleep Club was meant to fall between its co-founders’ bar backgrounds: Juan’s experience at the “more fine-dining, molecular gastronomy” end, and her previous partner’s time at a “high-volume, American-style” outfit.
The relaxed ground-floor space on Keong Saik Road aims to be “a neighbourhood bar, but with a more modern vibe”. This plays out in the interior, with warm tones, a welcoming glass facade, and a cosy curved banquette with several tables – kept close together for communal vibes, adds Juan.
No Sleep Club started out sharing space with a coffee joint on Club Street, before moving to its current location in late 2019. Only a restaurant licence was available, not a bar licence – so when the pandemic forced bars to close, No Sleep Club could keep operating.
Many bars had to abruptly expand their dining offerings, but it helped that No Sleep Club had served food from the beginning, recalls Juan: “We had a couple of months’ head start before Covid hit.”
The bar is currently open only for dinner, due to staff constraints. But Juan hopes to restore its morning service, such that customers can drop in “whether for a coffee or an espresso martini”.
The latter is one of several familiar staples on the cocktail menu. Says Juan: “You see things that you immediately recognise.”
Yet the bar puts its own spin on these. The 3 Lime Vodka Soda has the spirit redistilled with beer hops, kaffir lime leaves, and lime juice, and is carbonated in-house. Meanwhile, the NSC Gin & Tonic features clarified guava and plum gin, inspired by the plum powder-sprinkled guava slices that Juan snacked on as a child.
Both these drinks date back to the bar’s beginnings, and have stayed on the menu since. Another twist on a popular drink, A Dry Martini, joined them a few weeks ago. In a literal take on “dryness”, it involves redistilling gin and vodka with edible kaolin clay.
Some creations are familiar in a different way. Milk & Cereal captures the hope that No Sleep Club will soon resume daytime hours, with a boozy take on a breakfast classic: frozen chunks of cereal milk, served in a glass bowl with a spoon.
“It’s something that everyone ate as a kid, something that everyone can relate to,” says Juan. “I just want people to have fun.”
There is a considerable winelist to ensure that non-cocktail drinkers feel welcome, and an “approachable all-day menu”, ranging from chicken croquettes and lamb sliders to squid ink barley risotto and a grilled New York strip steak.
There are also plans for the second-floor space, with seats around a kitchen island-esque bar. Juan hopes to get collaborators from outside the industry – an interior designer, say, or a content producer – to work with No Sleep Club’s chef or bartender for special one-off events.
As Singapore emerges from the pandemic, “people are getting a bit restless”, she adds: “Everyone wants to do something different.”
NSC Gin & Tonic
30ml homemade black plum gin 10ml clarified guava gomme 7.5ml Mancino sakura vermouth 15ml clarified lime juice 60ml house tonic Garnished with compressed guava, served with powdered lacto-fermented plums
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