Night clubs, bars and discoteques started to sprout along the Malate portion of M.H. del PIlar, Mabini and Adriatico streets. Upscale restaurants lined-up the corner of Adriatico and Remedios streets with the opening of landmark restaurants like the Cafe Adriatico, Larry's Bar and the Korean Village.
Visual and performing artists found a haven in Malate and in the 1980s, the open and nonexclusive watering hole for artists was Penguin Bar along Remedios Street fronting the Remedios Circle.
For a period of time, Malate was the place where artists, poets, writers, actors, and film industry professionals gathered, where there was no degree of hypocrisy practiced, just the basic rule of "come and be yourself, express yourself."
Despite the reign of a dictatorial regime in the 1970s into the 1980s, the glitzy life in Malate flourished and more into the later part of the 1980s.