First look: The Manifest

Brandon Reid's new space offers beautiful, welcome relief in Chinatown

By Kawehi Haug

Advertiser Entertainment Writer

At some point, you’d think the whole Chinatown renaissance thing would get old. We’ve been hearing all about it for almost a decade now. But every time a new places opens in our favorite seedy neighborhood, we get excited all over again.

Can you blame us? What’s not to love about that inner-city clash of the classes?

We like braving the grit of Hotel Street, then slipping into a slick, clean room that’s the very antithesis of all that other stuff going down outside. We like the contrast. We like knowing that it’s pretty cool of us to party in dirty town. So when The Manifest, the newest spot to claim an address on Hotel Street, opened last month, we didn’t have to go to know we’d like it, but we went anyway so we could tell everyone else why they should like it, too.

The man behind The Manifest: The Manifest is owned by former Bar 35 bartender Brandon Reid. Reid, 27, operates Manifest as a coffee shop by day and bar by night. He keeps ridiculously long hours, but as tiresome as that must be for him, it’s lucky for us because his skills behind the bar as both bartender and gracious host are more of a draw than the place itself, and that’s saying something.

Room with a view: Ducking into The Manifest from Hotel Street is like taking a hot shower after surviving a long layover in a particularly grimy airport. It’s beautiful, welcome relief. The spare, black and silver furnishings and the cement bar feel cool and clean. The lofty ceilings actually seem to help you breathe a bit easier, and a partial glass ceiling lets in the day during light hours and glows with amethyst-colored light at night. I actually thought that I might be dumb enough to ask my boss if I could start working from The Manifest. Imagine that conversation.

Talk of religion and politics? Bring it on: “At most bars, religion and politics are off limit,” Reid said. “I don’t want this to be that kind of place.” He acknowledges that opening his space up for that kind of discourse might result in a few bar-side quarrels, but better a bout of intelligent argument than an atmosphere of complacency. “I wanted to make a space where people can fight it out to find the best solution.”

Intelligent, yes. Square? Never: Reid wants The Manifest to be a hub of intellectual discourse, but the guy’s not above throwing a good zombie-themed party now and then. But even when it comes to the fun stuff, he knows what he wants, and what he wants is to never have to host an ’80s party.

“Kawehi …”

I’m instantly nervous. Interview subjects never call me by my name. I look up to find Reid’s serious, earnest eyes looking right at me. Uh-oh. What now, I think.

“If I ever throw a decade party here — an ’80s party or a ’70s party or whatever — you have my permission to come kick my ass.”

I promised I would.

Light and sound: It seems inane to even care about the lighting in a bar, but I do. At The Manifest, the lighting is the kind that makes everyone look beautiful. Combine that with alcohol and the place and everything in it is downright breathtaking. Add to that Reid’s own playlist of sex-me-up classics like “Let’s Stay Together,” “Pretty Young Thing,” and “Human Nature,” and you’ve got one seriously wicked equation.

Is that red beer? It’s the most preposterous thing to happen to beer since some non-German started throwing fruit in their Hefeweizen, but Blue Dawg Brewing’s Wild Blue blueberry lager is an unlikely triumph. With an extra-high alcohol content at 8 percent and extra carbonation to make it bright and fizzy, the deep red-colored brew is so easy to drink it’s frightening. Even if I hated everything about The Manifest, I would still go back for the blueberry beer.

For a good cause: Part of Reid’s vision for The Manifest is to make it a place of social and cultural awareness. To that end, he plans to hold frequent fundraising events at the bar to benefit various nonprofits. On fundraising nights, he will donate a portion of the bar sales to an organization whose cause he can get behind. The next party for a cause happens tonight from 5 to 9 p.m. The event will benefit 2by2, an organization that helps orphaned and less-privileged children by funding improvement projects for their schools. 

The Manifest
32 N. Hotel St.
Hours: 7 a.m.-2 a.m. Mondays-Fridays, 8 a.m.-2 a.m. Saturdays
manifesthawaii.com