One month and a $1.5 million facelift later, Club 97 (it will keep the name) will reopen as a lounge bar, on October 6. In the past six months, at least four other lounges have opened: Amazona in Wan Chai, The Ivory Lounge and Cafe in Central, Home One Wine and Cafe in Tsim Sha Tsui and Liquid in Elgin Street, joining supine stalwarts like Feather Boa in Staunton Street, SoHo, and Tango Martini in Wan Chai. It seems the couch potato's day has finally arrived and it's an indication perhaps, that the districts have come of age.

'I think we've all grown up,' says Jamie Higgins, the 97 Group's general manager, adding the decision was driven by the club's 800 active members. 'People are done with the party animal thing and there's now more of an air of sophistication. We're introducing the art of conversation to Lan Kwai Fong. It seems to be the natural progression.'

After the makeover, Club 97 will be open-fronted, lit by chandeliers and will no longer have a dancefloor. Higgins describes the new decor as 'a blend of industrial-meets-baroque-meets-Victorian-meets-modern chic. Whatever that may be - though it will certainly be elegant', he says.

The new lounge is being designed by Elaine Jamieson from the Partnership design company. Jamieson has created most of the 97 Group's venues, including El Pomposo, The Pavilion, Cafe Einstein and La Dolce Vita. The lounge will no longer be a member's club nor will there be a cover charge.

Rhomberg is also going after an older, more affluent clientele with the arrival of the Kee Club, which the 97 Group will open in October on the corner of Wellington and D'Aguilar streets above the renowned Yung Kee restaurant. The owner of the famous Chinese eating institution, Kam Shui-fai and his family, will be partners.

Rhomberg, an inveterate European, says it will be modelled after emigre saloons, an old world tradition where someone living in perhaps St Petersburg, Vienna or Paris, would open their home to entertain visiting expatriates, be they statesmen, artists or philosophers.

As such, the Kee Club will be 'a private club with European flair that will feel like a private home'. Rhomberg says the membership-only club will pursue local members directly and only advertise abroad, in cities such as London, Paris and New York. 'It will be a platform for international clientele,' he says. While all the financial details are yet to be worked out, the cover charge won't be cheap: lifetime memberships for a couple will be in the region of $100,000 - granting access to amenities in the two-storey facility such as a grand piano, an in-house cinema, restaurant and bar and 'top entertainment from around the world'.

Though the 97 Group may offer the highest-profile examples, lounge lizards looking for a place to park need not wait. Most recently, a 'soft opening' on August 9 at Liquid, located at 1-5 Elgin Street. In June, Home One Wine and Cafe on Austin Road in Tsim Sha Tsui opened its doors. Also in June, The Ivory Lounge and Cafe, on Wellington Street in Central, made its debut. Amazona kicked off less than six months ago one floor below the zebra chic of Tango Martini in Lockhart Road.

Liquid is a 200-people capacity 'hybrid bar', with a nightclub downstairs and a lounge bar upstairs. 'The rave scene is kind of dying and this is the way things are moving,' says Darryl Mag, Liquid's director of marketing and entertainment.

Home One Wine and Cafe is intended to feel like its name, says manager Louis Hui, 'like your home'. There's a small dining room with a menu of mostly grilled seafood and meats and extensive wine list, a centrepiece living room with requisite sofas, a small private room and a back garden with a 'lawn bar'.

The Ivory Lounge and Cafe is likewise wine-oriented, with 10 whites and 15 reds to choose from, as well as a connoisseur's list of upmarket wines. 'Hong Kong has lots of nightclubs and restaurants but not much else in between,' says manager Shannon Bates. Ivory also serves three-course set Western meals, cheese platters, desserts and wine platters - food geared towards your wine selection, seafood and such for white wine drinkers, meatier bites for red.

Amazona, located in Wan Chai where the Flying Pig used to be in Lockhart Road, has a jungle theme including palm trees, lots of candles and earth-tones. The idea, says manager Ola Persson, 'is that it is as comfortable as sitting in your own living room - only there's full service'.

Lounges, not surprisingly, is a trend filtering down from other capitals of vogue. Mag, a native New Yorker, says he watched it first hit New York five years ago, arriving in Britain around the same time, says Liquid's interior architect, Briton Johnny Kember.

The lounge movement has even generated an interior design style called 'soft-tech', says Kember, who founded architectural firm KplusK with his twin brother Paul, and has designed other Hong Kong bars such as Jah. 'Soft-tech is about using hi-tech ideas to create a soft ambience rather than just imagery,' he says.

Liquid, for example, has 'gel bag walls'. The same plastic bags used for intravenous or IV drips are built into the walls and fibre-optic cables are inserted into the bags to transmit myriad colours of light inside them, allowing for subdued psychedelia at the flick of a switch. A single wall at Liquid has more than 400 gel bags, says Kember.

Even dance clubs are softening around the edges. C Club, Drop and Home either have, or have recently added lounge furnishings, like couches around the dancefloor. Phi-B's manager Phil Murphy says his club's most popular weeknight is Monday, when they play mellower music and 'provide softer chairs and comfortable cushions' for presumably soothed savage beasts.

Hand-in-hand with the lounge movement comes music with a muted edge. It's having an impact on the music, says Mag. 'The DJs are becoming more easy listening - like trip-hop and down-tempo breakbeat. People have come to appreciate that two to three hours of banging house music does your head in.' Even Phi-B, which typically attracts a younger crowd, is moving towards 'more jazzy, funky, not so banging music', says Murphy.

Perhaps more than any trend migrating East, the changing face of Hong Kong nightclubs reflects the changing demographic of local customers. Lan Kwai Fong, for one, is no longer a gweilo ghetto.

'Changes are becoming Chinese consumer-driven,' says Mag. 'All places are changing to this hybridised atmosphere of dance capability with couches, which allows for the Chinese custom to share a bottle of liquor while sitting around a table. Operators are paying more attention to affluent Chinese clients.'

'People are done with the party animal thing and there's now more of an air of sophistication. We're introducing the art of conversation to Lan Kwai Fong. It seems to be the natural progression'