Ah, the holy trinity of Durban nightlife back in the day! Slippers Boogie Palace / LA Hotel / Robert E. Lee – pure 80s/90s gold.
The Los Angeles Hotel (St Thomas Road, Berea) was the spot. It had a whole ecosystem of bars under one roof:
- Slippers Boogie Palace – downstairs dance club, roller-skate vibes in its heyday, killer DJs, live bands, the place you went to actually boogie.
- Robert E. Lee – the upstairs “action pub”/nightclub, more chilled but still pumping, home to resident bands like Ricky and the Spitfires, Gavin Nesbitt on the decks for years.
- LA – basically shorthand for the whole Los Angeles Hotel scene (plus the beer garden out back was legendary for pre-drinks and post-drinks catch-ups).
Sportsman’s Bar (the old-school men’s pub with all the school scarves and darts) and King Cotton (ladies’ bar) rounded it out, but the big three you listed were the ones that defined Saturday nights for a whole generation of Durbanites.
