Hangbok - Happy Karaoke

6/5/2016

Happy Karaoke isn't quite as new and slick as places like Karaoke Melody, but I've been here many times and will most likely come back many more.

For starters, this is the cheapest karaoke spot I know of. Hourly rates are charged per room instead of per person, so the more people you have to split the room cost, the cheaper it is. However, it's difficult to pay separately so it's better if everyone brings cash.

Song selection isn't the hugest or always the most up to date, but they do have a decent choice of songs in English and Korean and I think Japanese as well. They may have other languages but I'm not sure.

The actual karaoke videos are better here than some other places, and it's fun to see your "score" at the end. The microphones have covers so you don't have to worry as much about the mouth germs of whoever used them before you.

Great karaoke place, but I docked one star for song selection, relative difficulty of paying and the fact that the rooms tend to be pretty hot.

5/3/2016

I've been going to happy karaoke with friends for YEARS.

No, the service is not warm and fuzzy, but he's also always been very polite and kind to us, not belligerent like other people have mentioned. I think it's worth saying: No one in our group is of Korean lineage and I speak probably 100 words in Korean (poorly, I might add). The language barrier isn't an issue.

The couches have started to slip some over the years (they're a little worn at this point), but the yogurt, pineapple and strawberry soju is an enjoyable way to get WAY too drunk. The complimentary snacks that they bring are also nice too.

The A/C on a hot summer night works well, even with 10 people and a big screen TV emitting heat, which I think is kind of amazing.

Song choice is actually pretty good if you enjoy singing things from several different decades.

And I read a review of someone else's about the scoring being off. I was trained in opera growing up and I typically get in the mid to high 90s... you can only ask so much of a non-recording studio mic that is reading input from a room that isn't sound proofed and actively has background music being reverberated throughout. For what it is, it's great.

The sketchy parking lot thing- Yeah, it's dark and next to an old gas station, but what people who don't live around here don't realize is that Doraville Police Department  (the police department with a tank that made national news) is literally a 3 minute walk from this place. They don't mess around. This is not a part of town where you need to worry about getting mugged anyway (Doraville is one of safest cities in GA to live in). So don't sweat it, put your valuables in the trunk, and go sing your heart out.

2/11/2016

• 1 check-in

All the best karaoke joints are run by Koreans.

And Hangbok is no exception. With an extensive food and drink menu, a huge book of recently updated songs, and music-synced light shows, I'm not surprised this is the spot our hosts decided to take us to for the weekend.

The venue itself was very clean. All the rooms were equipped with easy to use machines, and the owners were so happy to be serving our large group. Their yogurt soju is on point, you can buy bottles of alcohol for much less than you'd think at a karaoke place, and they had Justin Bieber's "Sorry": we were basically set for the night. Did I mention I found a dollar in the bathroom??

8/3/2015

• 2 check-ins

• Listed in Ching Chong Ling Long Ting Tong

Happy Karaoke (not to be confused with Happy Family Karaoke) is located in what is probably the sketchiest lot of land on Buford Highway.

We came in not knowing exactly where to park. We couldn't park at the gas station so we ended up parking in a deserted lot.

Once we entered, two Korean men stood at the counter. One noticed one two larger Longchamp purses and asked to check our bags. I saw the sign on the wall that said "no handbags" which noted that larger handbags would be up to a mandatory search, at that moment. They took out my Nalgene water bottle full of water and told me they would be holding it at the counter until I left. I refused because I had no idea what they would be doing with a full bottle of water so I went ahead and put it back in the car. I was not impressed with this. It's one thing if they thought I brought in my own liquor or food, but I just wanted to be able to drink my own water and not pay a premium for bottled water.

We ended up staying and singing for two hours. The Korean scoring system had us at failing grades the entire time. And we had music majors/Masters in the room! There weren't too many new songs, but we made do, as we usually can with any selection of songs.

It was $30 an hour on a weeknight, with no free additional time, which I thought was a little absurd, but maybe prices have gone up everywhere. Overall, not impressed. There are definitely better Asian karaoke joints elsewhere.

5/20/2015

• 1 check-in

This karaoke bar is pretty ghetto. It's located behind the Chevron on Buford highway, and has a super sketchy parking lot (not very well lit either). When you first walk in, they do search bags (I have no idea what they're looking for). There is a very small bar area up front with a couch (waiting area presumably), and then a bunch of private rooms. The rooms themselves were fine - clean and with comfy couches and the standard tables. The song selection was meh and the books were not very well organized to find songs. It was much easier to try to locate songs by title name, artist name, or lyrics via the remote for the machine, but a bit time consuming to do so that way. A good thing was variety of songs in other languages (Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese) but the remote made it a bit difficult to search for songs in other languages.

The menu selection was decent - the food wasn't bad. There is kimchee rice, and seafood pancakes, and fried chicken. Also of course, beer and yogurt sochu. If you buy enough alcohol they will start bringing out complimentary fruit platters. (We discovered this by accident but never did figure out how much you had to spend for that to happen).

This place is pretty cheap so that's a plus, but come and leave in groups as the parking lot is SUPER sketchy.

6/4/2016

Fun times!! Good music selection. Good drink options. Open late. Friendly staff. This was a great night with lots of fun!

11/27/2015

• 1 check-in

I enjoy the private room karaoke style and they are so hospitable. If you order drinks they bring you complementary fruit trays! And there's always rooms available, the place is huge! Great large song library. No byob, and the drinks are expensive for the well liquor they are using. I recommend drinking beforehand or flasking it very carefully.

1/1/2016

The quality of the karaoke system is great. I love that the remote is all in English for non-Korean folks and you can switch between countries/languages, artists/titles, etc. or us the song books to find songs. They had a good number of recent songs that we wanted to sing and thankfully the videos weren't super random. The scores they give you are definitely inaccurate and I don't think we saw any tambourines, but I'm just glad the place didn't smell like smoke (and probably because the guy sprays the place with Lysol lol). My group of 8 sang for 2 hours and it cost $64 for the room or $8/person. The parking lot was hella dark and could definitely use more lighting so patrons feel safer.

10/22/2015

I've read some pretty mixed reviews about this joint, but I can vouch for my first experience as a pleasant experience.

Kitchen stays open late, very affordable price for a group, and overall clean, kempt atmosphere. I would recommend it.

7/3/2015

• 1 check-in

Asian style private room for karaoke!  
Awesome for a group of friends to have fun .
This place has a good collection of English songs. Though not as updated as I would like them to be.

Location is very convenient! And they take reservations. Owner is very friendly and flexible!

They also serve food and soju - soju is too sweet and food is alright.

1/7/2015

No, just plain no.

The people here are so rude! Our friends from Charlotte were visiting; it was around 12 and we decided we should go out to Buford Hwy since it was the closest rather than going deep into Gwinnett. My girlfriend had already gotten there ahead of us with her boyfriend to reserve the table. Everything has to be prepaid (what? why?)

Man, these people are rude. I hate them. It's not even rude because we weren't Korean but rude because they were rude. We wanted to buy more bottles of Crown but they wouldn't allow us. One bottle for 10-12 people? Nah, son. That won't do. This is karaoke. We need alcohol for karaoke.

Despite my friends speaking in the sweetest Korean, they were still reluctant and insisted that we needed to hurry up with our hour and leave.

You lost some good business, sir!

6/27/2015

RUDE! Is the best way to describe this place! We were having a fun party of 8 people for a few hours in our room , then we met up with some of the people in the next room and they came into our room to just sing with us for a bit before returning to their room and the rude manager guy comes in and kicks them out, when we asked what was the big deal since they were still paying for their room & we were paying for ours, he just said "not allowed" & kicked us out!!
I don't think we will be returning. We were not hurting anyone but just singing.
The beers & drinks are all very over priced and the food is not great and I do believe he even over charged us for the room.

4/23/2016

This is first time we come to this place. So we don't really know about the policy ,they don't allow bring any drinks and We just only had one cup of Milk Tea to bring in to the room. After 45' they come in and said "Do not allow drinks" then they took my milk tea through away with really bad attitude and so freaking rude. We said we don't know because it's 1st time and they dont care just ridiculous. RUDE RUDE DONT EVEN WANT TO GIVE THEY 1 STAR. Never come back again!

12/1/2014

• 1 check-in

The owner can be a dick sometimes. He tried to charge us for food and alcohol we already paid for. Good thing I caught him and we ended up getting 4 dollars back for each of the 8 people.

One time the owner tried to charge us from 8-12 when we arrived at 9. We had to go through security camera footage to confirm when we actually arrived.

The environment is fun and the songs are sort of up-to-date, but the tension between the owner and the customers can really bring down the fun of the night.

7/29/2014

Sketch parking lot... And it's also very tiny.

But 14 of us went. And it was lots of fun. They even had great modern songs!!! Sang for like 4 hours haha. Time flew by. We ordered a bunch of stuff and I feel like they gave us an hour free? It was super cheap when we paid.

They also gave us fruit plates on the house!

7/18/2015

• 1 check-in

The overall experience was very nice...they have private individual karaoke rooms. I prefer to have the wide open, stage type karaoke scene where you're out amongst everyone but this was nice nonetheless. The tab was $50 for 2 hours, so not too bad! I wouldn't mind coming back from time to time, and I'd recommend this spot to small groups that just wanna have fun times with close friends.

8/23/2015

Came here on a Saturday with my best friend and my fiancé, we were helped as soon as we walked in the door by really friendly staff, they quickly and swiftly set us up with a really cool and private room, the song selection is really good, they are missing some newer songs but I didn't really mind that. The only downside I could find to this whole place is that the menu is kind of skimpy and if you wanted food or drinks you had to walk to the front to order, but if you don't mind making the short trip it's fine, everyone sang their hearts out (for only $20 an hour!) And the manager even added 15 extra minutes free of charge, I would definitely return again  and recommend this place.  *presses applause button*

1/31/2015

So, mixed review here.  As other reviewers have mentioned, the parking lot is extremely sketchy but inside it's fine.  We didn't have any technical issues while there and everything went pretty smoothly.

Nice that they have a menu of food, soju, beer and drinks.  Food and soju was pretty good.  This review would be five stars except at the end they chose to charge us an additional $100 for the room, despite a listed special of $95 for four soju, food, and fruit.  Honestly, we were fine paying around $200 for the (many) soju, beers, and food but were expecting that after spending so much they would include the room as was listed on the menu.

However, instead of honoring their listed promotion they chose to charge us an additional $100.  We went from extremely happy and loyal customers to never coming back in 30 seconds.

For somewhere with so much potential, it's really disappointing on our end!

10/2/2012

• 1 check-in

• Listed in I sound like William Hung

It was a dear friends birthday, and I haven't seen her since her last one so when I heard she was doing karaoke for her bday, I had to check it out.  

I drive by this place all the time (as it is on the way from my house- Sweet Hut), and always wondered how it would fare to the places I have been to (which are near Gwinnett Mall).  

The parking is sketch as hell- you go around back to an unpaved lot that is shared with no lights and a dumpster (at least I found a great place to dump bodies), but I didn't get mugged on my way in or out- but just a thought for those who are conscious about their safety.

The place is an older one, and with that, I am not sure how the pricing worked out (I didn't pay), but I would assume on the cheaper side.

I told the guy at the door who I was looking for and he said they were in room 1 (great, can't wait what I was about to walk into!).  Low and behold, there were my friends.

Room 1 has enough seating for 10 people, and it came with 2 tvs.  The remote was more so in english than Korean- so I was able to utilize the "applause" button more frequently.

The songs were older, so I couldn't showcase my Carly Rae Jespen skills either- bummer.  On the plus side, the scoring system at the end of each song seemed to work- which I have not seen before- so that was cool!

It looks like they have a full bar here, so I would suggest checking it out!

If you want more old school karaoke, this is the place to go- don't expect a club like atmosphere- more like a pimped out cafeteria.

All in all, I was in the presence of friends so it made it worth it!

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  Hallway to rooms

  Hallway to rooms

1/9/2014

• 1 check-in

• Listed in Buford Highway | ATL., 31 for 31

We came in on a late Friday night/early Saturday morning; the occasion was to bid adieu to a friend moving abroad - we were doing so karaoke style per her wishes.

I don't know what I was doing with my life up until this point that I'd never been to a private-room-karaoke bar, but I have been missing out! It's far superior to any "regular" karaoke bar I've ever been to.  We were placed in Room #1, which was more than enough room for our group of ten. There were three - slightly worn in - medium sized couches surrounding a large table, set in front of the karaoke machine/flat screen, on the table were two microphones,one remote (for the karaoke system), three song booklets, and a food/drink menu.

We came in pretty late so we didn't get any food or drink, but the menu items sounded delicious. Side note: they're fairly strict on the no outside food/drink policy, there's even a 'no handbags' sign posted at the door though they didn't say anything about a few of us girls in with smaller purses.

The karaoke system is in Korean, but it's very easy to use - none of us spoke Korean and we had absolutely no problems with it. They have a very large English catalog of songs and it's pretty up to date with the current 'Top 100'; in addition, there are also large K-Pop and J-Pop catalogs. When the song starts to play, multi-color strobe lights come on - it's a nice touch.

Now I've read in some of the previous reviews that they charged $20 per room - regardless of party size, however we were charged by person. Our total came to $50 for one hour - $5 per person. Change in policy I suppose. Still it was a pretty good deal, I forgot to ask if it was different on weekends.

Overall, it's a great place to hang out with friends, and a much better alternative to the traditional karaoke bar - especially if you've got stage fright, like me.

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  Song book and remote.

  Song book and remote.
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  Private Karaoke Room #1.

  Private Karaoke Room #1.