Hooray Bar & Restaurant

In my pursuit of finding bars that have a view, we saught out Hooray Bar & Restuarant today for a place to sit, enjoy an afternoon glass of wine and rest our feet after so much shopping and walking around in Causeway Bay on a Saturday. Often we would look for a coffee shop, but sometimes the crowds can be so bad only booze will do.
In the World Trade Center, you can either take the escalators up to floor 5 or you can take the elevators up to floor 5. Make note if you take the elevators, the doors open inside Uniqlo the clothing store. Just hang a left and walk through Uniqlo and you will find Hooray.
Mission Accomplished! Hooray is a giant space with about 80% of it being rooftop, outside and overlooking the harbor with Kowloon in the distance. Now because it is only located five floors up, the view of the harbor is indeed unobstructed and vast, but your vantage point is low. As such, you see the construction from the area along the water, the work boats tied up and the surrounding buildings. You also hear more of the sounds of the city and the road below. None of these points are bad, it is just worth noting.
Because Hooray is so large, you really feel you are in the open air. You feel the breeze. There a tons of tables for outdoor dining (many covered if you wish to be out of sun rays and breeze) and the bar itself is located closer towards the water with the best views I suppose. We chose to sit at a normal table and simply enjoy the overall space.
It was a great find to take refuge from the chaos and crowds of Causeway Bay, especially around 2PM on a Saturday when the restaurant was very slow as they transition from lunch to dinner. We skipped the wine and had cocktails. I had a really yummy Lemongrass martini and my husband enjoyed a drink from their non-​alchoholic mocktails, a guava based fruit thing. Both were well made and good. Along with our order of french fries, we just chilled out, relaxed, enjoyed the open air, regrouped and took our time.
I cannot speak to their food, because we only had fries, but their service was friendly and consistant. I did ask about Happy Hour and they said they no longer has a designated Happy Hour. Not sure if this is just because we asked on a Saturday or if he misunderstood that I was asking in general. It kind of sounded like they just don’t have Happy Hour anymore for any day of the week. Not sure on this. The place is good for lunch with a girlfriend or a group of twenty co-​workers.
Happy Hour or not, we will be back. I like having a secret in my pocket of where to chill and get away from the crowds in Causeway Bay.

Definitely a good place to chill in CWB. If you’re visiting HK, come here at night to take a break from the hustle and bustle of the city and get a decent view of the harbour (the picture doesn’t do the great view justice). Plus, don’t forget that at night you can also catch the light show over the harbour too!
The deck area outside is spacious. There are two-​person high-​bar tables along the edge of the deck along with comfortable sofas for lounging with groups. The food is okay – nothing overly special but service is pretty quick. Drinks are good too. The Hooray Mojito is good and every person I’ve gone to Hooray with has loved it.

For a good view over the harbour in Causeway Bay, or a breath of outdoor fresh air (which you can’t find much in the crowded CWB) I either go to Totts at the roof of Excelsior or the outdoor deck of Hooray.
At its vast open deck it has plenty of sofa seats in the mid-​section for large groups gatherings and chatting, a BBQ kitchen hut in the middle and in front of it, some high bar tables and lower regular tables (so that the front-​most seats won’t obstruct those behind) at the front end near the harbour. In these front sections, you can have an unobstructed view over the boat shelter, the cross-​harbour tunnel entrance, and the whole of Kowloon skyline– the ICC, the One, K11, The Icon etc.
This place serves regular western food, food from the Japanese kitchen next to it, and also BBQ snacks from the kitchen hut in the middle, but I almost only have drinks and the BBQ snacks only, as other menus are not too impressive for the price they’re charged. This place is especially awesome to visit at sunset times (pity it doesn’t have a happy hour offer, well with such a trump card on hand, what do you expect), and you can see the sun setting over the HK skyline on the western corner of the deck. At this in-​between meals time, you need to grab your drink from the cash bar, and then have free seating at any tables. BBQ hut and other kitchens operate from 6pm onwards, and I recommend the snacks from the BBQ hut to go with your drink. I know at post-​dinner hours the place often has a minimum charge or around 150 I recall, but this doesn’t apply at the afternoon hours so it’s a good place to ease into the night relaxingly as it is not half as crowded as the rest of CWB at this time of the day.