Jennifer L.
Yelp
I loved Monkey Bar, even though I'm only giving it a 3 star review.
The 3 star reviews comes from the fact that yes, it is touristy. It's attached to some hotel, and it's in a pretty boring area of Berlin -- touristy, typical American shopping, none of that cool/artsy/Berlin vibe. The hotel it is in looks really cool, even though I found the area kind of 'meh', I'd stay at the hotel next time I'm in Berlin. The service situation also sucks.
Boyfriend and I rode lime bikes from where we were staying through the Tiergarten to get to this place. You enter in this artsy kind of lobby area with a girl directing you to go to the bar or, the 25hours hotel it was in. We hopped in the elevator and rode up to the 10th floor the bar is on. The elevator doors open to a hallway with the bar towards the end. I loved the whole pretentious, neon, artsy, NYC vibe it has going on.
Yes, it is jungle themed, but in an upscale manner. I enjoyed the menu filled with drinks with names like "King Kong", "Bananarama", "Rafiki", etc.
We found ourselves seats at the very crowded bar (this was about 4:30pm on a Saturday) and each decided on a tequila based drink which were really, really good. I don't drink rum (try to stay away from too much sugar), but if I did, I would have had one of their rum based drinks. It took, however, at least 20 minutes to get our drinks (first go around). People (Americans, of course) were literally fighting to get their drinks first! Our second round of drinks took equally as long and don't even bother ordering food... we almost left by the time our french fries came out.
They play good music, lights are dim, and when it's daylight, there's supposed to be an incredible view. We ventured outside when we were ready to leave on the rooftop, which was decorated to the theme really well, but we didn't stay outside long because it was quite chill being the beginning of November. I'd come back during Spring/Summer. They did have fire lamps though.
So, all in all:
PROS
- great selection of fun, craft cocktails
- love the vibe and tropical theme
- great view
- outdoor rooftop
CONS
- boring area of town
- touristy
- extremely busy
- slow service