Kamenný Šenk is a one-room bar in a basement at the top of one of Olomouc’s three hills; ‘St Michael’s peak’. Also known as "the smoky bar", it’s probably a bad choice if you’re accustomed to bars with fresh air.
Kamenný Šenk looks like a real old-school Czech bar. Dark wooden stained benches, whitewashed walls and arched ceiling, and floorboards worn bare by the heavy footsteps of many late nights. Candles on every table help to support the age-old tradition of absent-mindedly constructing fantastic towers of wax while drinking alone or with companions whose conversational skills are somewhat lacking.
Six tables with bench seats on either side provide seating for up to 36 people, and on any given night, a good percentage of those are likely to be regulars. The lady that runs the bar has a poodle and most of the customers seem to know its name. Maybe some of the regulars come for the relatively narrow selection of music from the early seventies, in which Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin are the shining lights. The downhill walk home at the end of the night (through a pedestrian zone) must be another bonus to some of the more enthusiastic drinkers.
The smoky bar is just a little more expensive than some of the comparable bars in town. The 500ml beer is 22Kè, which is 5Kè dearer than in Vertigo for example. 5Kè here and there may not seem like much to most of us, but it’s almost 25% of the price of a beer and if you’re coming to the end of your travel funds or you plan to drink quite a bit, it could be worth calculating. My pineapple juice was 20Kè (17Kè at Vertigo) and mineral water 13Kè, but beer is by far the most common order at Kamenný Šenk.
Despite the smokiness and the few extra crowns per beer, it’s not a bad spot for a few drinks with friends. It’s as close as you’re likely to get to an authentic old-fashioned beer hall without trekking out into the suburbs, and the regulars are quite accustomed to the occasional outsider joining them for an evening of jocularity. You can probably expect to be the subject of a few sideways glances when you first arrive and settle in, but then you’ll be completely ignored by everyone except the owner of the bar, unless you do something that is more interesting than beer (not likely).
If there’s a guy making noises like a chicken at one of the tables, don’t worry; he’s not making fun of anyone, he does it all the time.