hip kitty jazz & fondue club

Do that many people like fondue...especially in boiling water. Not so great! But, there isn't a bad act on the calendar, and there is plenty of free parking. Large college crowd. Very friendly.

This place is a hidden Jewel great music and great fondue. The staff is about as friendly as could want, if you like live music and tasty mixed drinks go to the hip kitty.

Average food, average drinks etc. Nothing too special unless there is a great live band playing...only reason to go back. Everything else was so basic - wouldn't go back for the food or drinks...

A great place to go and enjoy an evening. Favorite to hang out with friends. Check the website for the bands that are scheduled to play. Fondue is good too! Easy parking.

The music is very loud, so give up any hope for real conversation, but this place did not disappoint. Live jazz music, swing dancing, and superb people watching. The fondue and drinks were very good; a bit on the pricey side, but not unreasonable.

This location is great for a night out with the girls (or a date with your special someone)! The ambiance is neat and mellow. The food and drinks are great, although the prices are not inexpensive. They often have life music inside and the outside patio available for those who want a quieter setting. Service is friendly!

I went with my brother who goes to school in Claremont. Paid $5 for a Stella, which is usual. Great band and a smoking patio with fireplace. It was my kinda juke joint. Great local hipster and rockabilly crowd.

We could not carry a decent conversation as the music was extremely loud. Service was slow and rude. Food not worth the price. Patio lovely but they would not sit us there and nobody offered to help us find a table either. No servers went to the patio so we went indide again and found a table. Not a good place to meet with friends and chat much less for a romantic date, too loud.

We were showing our friends from West Covina, how cool the new Claremont, CA Packing House area is. We were always curious what Hip Kitty was all about. So we walked in to show them, and to check it out ourselves. Saturday night, January 24, 2009 at 8:30pm, and very crowded. Business looks good I thought, must be the place to be, I thought. There was only a small corridor of room for me to walk, I had just entered inside the front door, walking past a bar, following my friends to the Patio when someone said EXUSE ME, behind me. I had no idea they were apparently annoyed with me, then again, 3 seconds later very loudly: EXUSE ME !!!, I turned around to see an agitated waiter with two large plates of food behind me. It was crowded with no place for me to move, and if that dimwitted waiter had any eyes connected to his peanut brain, he would be able to see I had no alternative route. I turned left, he turned right, I walked out the back patio, and directly out the back door. Amazingly, it only took Hip Kitty 22 seconds for me to decide my money and I will never enter that front door again. Wow !!, such an extremely rude and arrogant attitude, especially for a business that lives and dies by how they treat prospective customers.

I really WANTED to like the Hip Kitty. I love the whole kitchy early 60's fondue thing. The patio is lovely and the decor inside is fun. Nice lighting and nice booths....that's ALL the nice things I can say.First of all, we (a party of 4) were seated in a table so squished up against other people the waitress and I were bumping elbows all night and I couldn't even get up without disturbing at least 3 people in the process. And we had a reservation!Next, the fondue. Or as we called it, the "fon-don't". While the taste was ok, (nothin to write home about) it was ridiculously expensive for what you were getting. NOT a meal, more like an appetizer that should've cost half as much.The service was TERRIBLE. Our waitress brought a drink roughly 30 minutes after we'd order it. There was almost NO checking back with us to see if we needed anything else. Her attitude was like she was put out to have to serve us!BUT THE WORST: My girlfriend had lipstick on her glass! Disgusting and unsanitary. AND she ordered a drink and there was a bug in it! Being of pretty good humor, she ordered another and THAT one had a bug in it too! Hip Kitty should be avoided if you're looking to protect your health and your wallet!

Hated it, won't ever go back!!! My husband and I tried it out shortly after it opened. It was very , very crowded and we were told by the hostess not to leave as it would be only a short wait till the fondue bar opened up spots for dinner. Sure, we thought we'll buy some drinks and enjoy the band, needless to say, 2 1/2 hours later we'd had enough. We walked out mentioned to the Manager why we were leaving he hands us his business card and says next time call early and make a reservation!! Never again! BTW I inform everyone I know who attempts to try out this place about our experience.

The Village West in Claremont's downtown area is trying hard. Really, really hard. Three Forks isn't quite cutting it, and neither are the Mediteranean nor Thai restaurants. On a whim, we decided to visit the Hip Kitty Jazz & Fondue Club. Here are our impressions. The decor is very tacky, but in a cool kinda way. They are trying very hard to resonate with the 70s crowd. However, the service is nonexistent. We had reservations for 7:30 on a Sunday night and they couldn't quite figure out where to seat us. We sat at the bar for quite a while, and the bartender couldn't, or wouldn't, take our order. We finally flagged down a waittress to get a couple of drinks. Finally, we were shown to our table, the same one that had been set up and empty from the moment we arrived. Before the jazz combo started playing, the prerecorded music was loud - very, very loud. Don't go there if you want to carry on any kind of meaningful conversation. However, once the jazz combo started playing, it was magic. We were there when the Matt Snyder group was playing and it was really great. We ordered several kinds of fondues (vegetable, meat, and dessert) and can hands down say "Eat before you go!" There was not enough food there to feed a flea! But we didn't mind because the music was really great and we enjoyed hanging out with our friends. As the music changes daily, do your homework before you go. We lucked out on our night, but you might not be as lucky.