At its peak Hong Kong carried something like 150,000 neon signs. A count in 2022 put the survivors at roughly 500. Nearly nine in ten have gone in two decades, stripped out at a rate of thousands a year under building regulations and replaced, where they are replaced at all, by LED. The Pontiac Hong Kong has responded by making itself one of the last ones lit.
The rock and roll bar at 13 Old Bailey Street launches NEON LIT: A Light in Shadow Spaces on 1 September, and it is hanging fresh neon inside the room to go with it. The conceit is simple enough to state and harder to earn: a neon sign is a signal that something is open and you are welcome in it.
Why neon, and why now
Hong Kong’s neon was never decoration. It was infrastructure, a wayfinding system for a vertical city, and its disappearance has been one of the more visible cultural losses of the past twenty years. Choosing it as a menu theme in 2026 is a decision with a point of view rather than a mood board.
It also lands at a strange moment of confidence for the city. Hong Kong hosted the World’s 50 Best Bars ceremony in October 2025, the first Asian city to do it, and watched Bar Leone take the global No. 1 on home ground. The Pontiac is the other side of that scene: no reservations, loud playlist, eleven years old, and ranked No. 33 on Asia’s 50 Best Bars in 2022.
Gateway: the new releases
Six new drinks make up the section the bar calls The Pontiac Neon: Gateway, built as elevated riffs on nineties club-style favourites. Three have been detailed, and each comes from somebody who works there.
Midnight Sun is Compass Box Artist’s Blend with a blackberry-shiitake cordial and angostura. It takes its name from the Midnight Sun in San Francisco, a Castro gay bar running since the early seventies and the first gay bar partner and general manager Jen Queen ever walked into, where she picked up her queer history.
Teaches of Peaches is Planteray 3 Star, lime, minted peach, verjus, orange bitters and soda, made by charring the peaches and shaking the minted scraps through the rum. It is named for Peaches, the feminist musician behind one of the first concerts Queen ever snuck into.
Kick at the Dark belongs to team member Sarah: Nuku Mezcal, ancho verde, jalapeño brine, lemon, cilantro and wonderfoam, with a name lifted straight from a song. It is the most direct expression of the bar’s rock and roll half.
Midnight Sun
Teaches of Peaches
Kick at the DarkCommit to the Lit: six greatest hits
The second section is the back catalogue. Pinkies Up is senior bar manager Nicole Slater’s drink, a split base of gin and rum with strawberry-oolong cordial, lemon and aér, built to reflect a childhood spread across Hong Kong and Britain. 1•3•O.B., subtitled “It’s where we stand”, is a four-part riff on chocolate-peanut butter snack mixes using PB Whiskey, Amaro Montenegro, hazelnut liqueur, sesame and angostura, named for the address itself.
Then there is Hobnail, labelled Vol. 1, 2015: whisk(e)y, rich bitch ginger, averna, lemon and orange oil. It has been on the list since the doors opened and is the drink the room is built around.
A female-led room at 13 Old Bailey Street
Queen arrived with more than twenty years across San Diego, Cambodia and Myanmar, and runs the bar with Slater and a female-led team, on a stated footing of mentorship and self-expression. That is worth naming plainly, because a rock and roll dive bar led by women is still not the norm in an industry that talks about representation more often than it staffs for it. The Pontiac is also a bar in its second era, continuing from what Beckaly Franks built before stepping away in 2024.
“The Pontiac has always been more than a bar; it’s a living, breathing community where everyone is welcome to step out of the shadows and shine,” says Jen Queen. “Whether you’re diving into our new releases or returning to iconic hits like the Hobnail that built our culture over the past 11 years, this menu represents the light, passion, and spirit of our team and everyone who walks through our doors.”
The rest of the list
Every section carries the neon name. Contraband Neon rotates reinterpreted classics, positioned as the test a bartender has to pass. Shots Shots Shots Neon is exactly what it sounds like, singly or in sixes. ES Neon holds the house spirits, wines and beers.
The most interesting of them is F*ck Off Neon, the zero and low-ABV section, built with CROSSIP and framed as inclusive drinking. Plenty of bars now run a no-and-low list. Very few give it a name with that much attitude, and the choice does more for the idea than another page headed “mindful” ever has: it puts the non-drinking guest in on the joke rather than in the corner.
NEON LIT launches 1 September at The Pontiac, 13 Old Bailey Street, Central, Hong Kong, open from 4pm on weekdays and 2pm at weekends. For the wider picture of the city right now, see our Top 10 Bars in Hong Kong for 2026.
