Wax needs more sheen

When people ask me for advice about opening a bar, I invariably tell them not to bother. Go and stack shelves at Sainsbury's, I say. It's an essential job, people will appreciate your efforts, you'll get time off for good behaviour and you'll get a natty little overall to wear. They don't listen, of course.

When pressured further, I advise people to steer clear of opening a style bar. Excellence, you see, comes at a price - good-quality staff need to be paid accordingly, keeping a stock of premium drinks adds up to money sitting on the shelves, and don't even start me on the cost implications of running an all-singing, all-dancing, open-all-hours kitchen. Pile 'em high and sell 'em cheap, I say. You have to remember that the nation's favourite food is fish and chips, its preferred drink is a pint of lager, and its most popular pastime has something to do with fornication.

The owners of the new Wax bar near Oxford Circus need no help in targeting their market. They own several Central London venues, including Tiger Tiger, Sugar Reef and Red Cube - party places that go down a storm with sprightly young things travelling in from Chelmsford, Basingstoke and Milton Bloomin' Keynes.

You're supposed to be over 21 to get in to Wax, although it doesn't specify whether this is age or IQ. Friday night, and Wax was packed with office boys and girls shaking off their weekday acrylics. The total capacity is 500, spread over two bars --a quietish ground-floor bar and a sprawling basement bar with the atmosphere of a nightclub --and even at 6pm it must have been almost full.

The happy hours - theirs not mine - were well under way. Between 5pm and 7pm every day all cocktails are £3 (from £4.95 at full price), house spirits are £1.50 (from £2.75), wine (except the house) is half-price, and champagnes are reduced by £10 per bottle. They're horrible drinks - let me not underestimate this, I mean virtually undrinkable to a discerning palate - but they're piled high and sold cheap. However, in a cunning move to discourage people taking advantage of the offer, they are understaffed to the point that we had to wait 20 minutes to be served.

The lunchtime menu currently offers finger food, from £4.25-£5.95, plus baguettes, with char-grilled sirloin steak (£7.25), and chicken, bacon and brie (£6.75). Fish-finger sandwiches (£4.95) were also on the menu, as was a fat-chip-and-fried-egg butty with Daddies' sauce. I must confess that the food isn't horrible - it's drinking food.

So, I won't be going back to Wax again, will I? Actually, I might. This is the Footballers' Wives equivalent of the bar world - downmarket and totally trashy, but worryingly irresistible.