Founder of iconic Kowloon bar could spot a trend before it hit

Michael Leslie Thomas Sims, 74, the founder of a famed Hong Kong haunt and a purveyor of fun times and good fare, died last Tuesday in his native Australia.

In the late 1950s, Mr Sims opened the Waltzing Matilda Inn in Kowloon, a now-shuttered bar which was first popular with seamen, especially merchant mariners and Vietnam-era sailors, Mr Sims' eldest child, Mary Woo Sims, 53, remembered.

'My memory of it is that it was always crowded with sailors from throughout the world,' she said. 'It was a medium-sized pub with floor space and booths ... It was an exciting place. It was always full of sailors trading stories about where they'd been, their adventures. It was a guy's hangout, really. Probably not the place for children to really be in, but, hey, that was my playground.'

Mr Sims would also open the Hasty Tasty Catering Company across the street from the bar. His family said it was the first English-style fish and chip shop in Hong Kong.

Mr Sims would sell the Waltzing Matilda Inn by 1970. He would keep busy with other pursuits in Hong Kong, Mary said, including The Steakman restaurants, The Professional Club, the American Pool billiard halls, and Sportworld, indoor sporting facilities with roller skating rinks and arcades. Mr Sims was also president of the Amateur Roller Skating Association of Hong Kong, started the first licensed electronic games centre in the city, and owned The Esplanade restaurant in Macau, his family said.

'I use to call him the 'entrepreneur extraordinaire' because he used to be able, business-wise, to spot a trend before it became a trend, and take advantage of it, and then get out of that work before it became a situation where the market was glutted,' Mary said. 'As a father, he did the best he could. I'll always have fond memories.'