It's all hip and happening in a cafewith lots of culture
Sipping freshly brewed cappuccino while listening to live, original music is a new experience for cafe-goers in the city.
Then there is the visual gratification of oil paintings and hand-painted T-shirts hanging on the walls.
Visitors to the DY Club Cafe Gallery in Cameron Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, find a cosy place with comfy sofas and stylish decorations that provides the perfect venue for whiling away the hours.
And compared with other upstairs cafes, the drinks and refreshments provide good value for the money.
To local artists, the cafe serves an even bigger role - it is one of the few venues that will display their work for free.
DY Club Cafe Gallery, which opened last year, fuses music, food and art. Artists of any persuasion - musicians, painters, photographers, cartoonists, artisans - can apply to perform or show off their work for up to two weeks.
'To be an independent musician in Hong Kong is extremely hard unless you have a well-off family background. I do freelance jobs to make a living,' said 26 year-old Anthony Choi Wing-lam, guitarist with R&B band Match Box.
Choi met another band member, Gavin Fong Ka-chun, 23, at the Tsim Sha Tsui waterfront when they were doing street performance. Not long ago they saw an advertisement for the cafe and thought it sounded like the perfect place to create music.
'In the streets or shopping malls, we have to play popular songs so as to appeal to the people. But in the cafe we can play whatever we like. It is what real art means - to express one's feeling,' said Fong, who performs every Friday night at the cafe.
Others, like amateur photographer Dave Chow Chi-wai, have made use of the space to send out more serious messages. Last October he held a fund-raising photo exhibition featuring children living in a remote area in Guizhou province . It raised more than HK$60,000 in two weeks.
'Hong Kong people are enthusiastic about donating money to the needy - especially if they know where their money goes to and who they help,' said Chow, a project officer with the Hong Kong Christian Council.
'It costs as much as HK$20,000 to hold an exhibition at public venues like the Hong Kong Central Library or the Cultural Centre. It is not somewhere we can afford,' said Dragon Ken Tsz-kin, 27, president of the Hong Kong Creative Art Association. Ken previously displayed his oil paintings at the cafe.
The venue is now displaying a set of colourful and conceptual hand-drawn T-shirts and caps by Lennie Tsui Tsz-ling, one of the many artists who are struggling to make a living from selling their creative pieces.
'In Europe, it is common for an artist to rent a place, create art and sell artworks, yet it is impossible to do so in Hong Kong,' she said.
The exhibition space in the cafe is fully booked until after the Beijing Olympic Games in August.
'We do not have much budget for advertising but our reputation is built on word of mouth among customers and bloggers,' said Joe Fu, one of the cafe's founders.
While art and music are two important elements, the key to the business is the food.
'Customers won't come again if the food is not good,' Fu said. 'So our priority is to maintain a high quality in what we serve.'
Upcoming events
Music
Tuesday night - Solo pianist performances
Friday night - Match Box Live
Exhibition
Now until March 1 - Lennie's Fingers
March 2-15 - Ben Leung & Sirius photo exhibition
