The Kong Goes Classy-ish

Renowned for its suspect scorpion bowls, the Kong is looking legit—or, it’s trying to.

After 53 years as an icon of late-night revelry, the Hong Kong restaurant of Harvard Square is rolling out a new look. But you can’t find it behind the restaurant/comedy club/lounge/dance club’s faded jade façade or underneath its signature red-and-yellow electric sign. You have to go beyond Mass. Ave to its second address: www.hongkongharvard.com.

Having landed its corner of the World Wide Web early last fall, the Kong Web site is a surreal vision of elegance and class. In place of shady clientele and garishly-lit tables are a handful of carefree twenty-somethings sipping scorpion bowls in soft candlelight.

“It’s definitely sexy,” says Web designer Darrin F. Samaha, creator of the restaurant’s cyber identity. His firm, Blue Coda, counts the Harvard Square Business Association, Gino’s Salon on Holyoke Street, and the Expository Writing department among its clients.

“It’s not a re-branding, but it’s an update,” explains Hong Kong owner Paul Lee. Ten years since its last renovation, the Kong wants to maintain its beloved spot in the hearts of drunken Harvardians. Lee plans to introduce online ordering soon to stay competitive in Harvard Square, “where customers are a little more computer savvy.”

As for the discrepancy between the establishment’s dubious reputation and its newfangled image as a yuppie hangout, Samaha insists that the Web site is the first step in the Kong’s modernization. The goal is to cast off the sketchiness and “make people realize that there is decent food in there.”

Only time can tell whether the Kong’s quest to overcome its rep is a feasible endeavor. Until then, drunken revelers can collect vodka-soaked plastic animals in peace.