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Tuesday - breakfast, swimming, lunch, more swimming, afternoon nap, massage with super horny Thai guy who wanted to fuck me but I politely declined, chill out at airbnb, dinner, drinks with Myanmar guy at Rainbow Dragon and teaching him more Chinese words and finally a night out with handsome Viet guy from Good Boy bar to Beef disco at Silom Edge.

I knew of 2 bars like this in Rome, Italy in the early years of 2000. "XL: Mi piaci, ti chiamo" - this was a discreet gay bar near the Pantheon in Rome where they had physical old style rotary phones on the bar tables and you could call someone over at a nearby table to chat.  The only thing was that there was 1 phone per table and if the wrong person would answer you had to kindly ask the person to hand the "cornetto" handset to the person that you were interested in talking with.  Unfortunately, the person who would usually answer the phone was usually the more extroverted person at the table and then he would torture you with a million questions trying to ascertain from which table you were calling from - to screen your call - truly annoying.  When you finally made contact with the person that you were interested with you could have a nice conversation but everyone at the same table would be participating in the call.    https://www.gay.it/xl-mi-piaci-ti-chiamo   The other bar in Rome that had a similar theme was called, "Edoardo II" on vicolo Margana.  For the life of me, I cannot remember the name of this dedicated theme night, perhaps, biglietteria or bigliettino ?  Anyway, at each table were pieces of paper, like a post it note, and you would write your seduction/introduction note and give it to the sexy waiter to deliver to table X - each table had its own number and you would discreetly tell the waiter which person at the designated table that you were interested in.  When the message was delivered by the water he would point you out so that the reader of your message knew who you were.  I found this event more fun as an icebreaker than the above mentioned rotary telephone bar - because nobody could monopolize the rotary phone using this paper based methodology.  It was truly a lot of fun and I went to "Edoardo II" on many occasions and I was able to meet many Italian guys as a consequence.  Our very own @TotallyOz makes reference to this bar/restaurant in his 2013 post:   Do any bars like this still exist in Thailand?

I just read that long post which I think @zombie will have picked up from Sawtdee.com. I was also concerned about some of the financial issues raised in @macaroni21's post above. I believe Circus took over 5 years ago. For the purchase price of premises to drop from Bt. 14 million to Bt. 4 million in 5 years surely tells potential customers a lot of what they ought to know. Mind you, to be fair the Circus years coincided with covid and so understandably there will have been a major drop in customers during that time. Competition in the soi has also increased, but when Telephone was sold there were almost as many bars and other venues in the soi. However, a drop of Bt. 10 million in the purchase price surely indicates there is more to these figures that needs to be investigated.      

Came across this AI search mention of a New York bar by chance: "The Boiler Room (East Village): Located at 86 E 4th St, this laid-back, long-standing neighborhood gay bar was famous for having rotary-style telephones and private switchboards installed at the tables. It allowed patrons to "call" across the room to flirt or buy drinks for one another." Does anyone know of it?

Thanks, @zombie There's useful additional information there. Firstly, That means the rent is (12 x 38,100) + (3 x 350,000) annually. That is 1,507,200 baht per year. It does sound low probably an anchor-tenant rate. Not sure when that previous sale occurred. If it was when Telephone Pub was rebranded as Circus, then perhaps 6 - 7 years ago? Still, 4 million baht offered today is a very far cry from 14 million baht, and definitely raises some critical questions.