Star Karaoke & bar

It’s forty bones an hour for a room, so I feel like the best bet is to bring the whole crew along for this one. The song selection isn’t completely perfect, but the ambiance more than makes up for it. There just aren’t many places in life where you can belt out «Semi-​charmed Life» while inexplicably watching an Italian man cook a pizza in a brick oven on a 40-​inch screen.

Looks totally sketchy from the outside but the inside is comfortable and the staff has been very helpful (I’ve been there approximately 4 – 5 times). You have a book of songs — by artist and by song name. Lots of fun. I’ll be back.

Called to reserve a room, asked them if they have Chinese K. Guy answered, exasperated, that it was private rooms only, and hung up. I don’t know what to say…

Had a lot of fun here! It looks a little scary from the outside, but it’s not. The rooms are really nice and clean. They have an okay beer selection (not awesome but good enough). The owners were pretty nice. One of our mics broke and they moved us into a huge room for the same price as we were paying for our other room, which was nice (although I wondered what would have happened if that room had not been empty – we would have been stuck with 1 mic for 8 people because that room had wired mics rather than wireless). The music volume was a bit loud for our tastes and you couldn’t turn it down, but that was not a huge deal; we probably could have asked if it was that important. My only real complaint was that the song book didn’t have the best selection of English songs. I have done a lot of karaōke in my life and while this was definitely not the worst selection, it wasn’t great either. Also, the books were only organized by song title, not by artist, which is kind of unusual and not that easy to get used to. Still, we had no trouble finding 3 hours worth of songs to sing. We had a blast and it was worth every penny. Will definitely come back.

Star Karaōke moved from the Raleigh location. The new location is good, very clean and spacious. The price depends on the amount of people that go, we had 7 people and it was $ 40/​hour. The owner is always nice. Had some good times here. The rooms are super comfy, coaches are very high quality. Ambiance is nice, has disco balls. Sound quality is awesome. He has Bose speakers set up in each room. As for the Karaōke machine itself, always has the latest songs. This is mostly a Korean place but Korean or not, you will have fun here. Come here with friends.

3.5 stars. A fun little place on a strip with a Korean BBQ and Indian and Mediterranean restaurants with rooms to rent and songbooks with Chinese, Korean, and English karaōke songs. They actually keep (at least the English) selections pretty up to date with new music which is nice. They also have a nice variety of Chinese/​Japanese beers, including Tsingtao, Sapporo, Asahi, and sake bottles. The lady at the bar (possibly the owner) was actually really nice, so no complaints on the service front. Wouldn’t mind coming back if I landed in Durham again.

Too pricy, and the owner doesn’t seem to appreciate repeat customer. I might not go back there unless my buddies want to just experience a clean Korean-​style Karaōke. I am dissapointed by their lack of customer service.

This place is pretty cute and very reminiscent of a traditional Korean norebang. They don’t have liquor and it’s a bit pricey, but I’d likely give it another shot. The owner also told me that they are supposed to be getting samgyupsai soon so I’ll definitely want to try that.

DON’T GO HERE! Just spend some money on buying a mic and do karaōke at home! hook your laptop to your tv screen and use
or
. WAY CHEAPER and no need to worry about grumpy old guys ruining your time.
POOR CUSTOMER SERVICE! machine failed, took effort to get them to reboot it and then that rebooting took another five minutes. then they cut off our time in the middle of a song! most places have the decency to let people finish out their song. when we complained that they should at least given us some extra time because of the technical error that was such a mood killer to deal with, they claimed that they did already and that the technical error wasn’t that intrusive since it only takes a minute to reboot. BOTH STATEMENTS ARE FALSE! I clearly looked at my watch.

This place certainly made for a really fun party, but the night wasn’t without its snags.
First, I’d really LOVE for them to have not just small and large rooms (at $ 40 and $ 80 an hour, respectively), but a happy medium-​sized room like they have in Raleigh (at $ 50/​hour). Because three hours of karaōke in a large room can certainly add up.
I made sure that my party overlapped with happy hour, and we took advantage of it by buying bottles of wine (for $ 10 instead of $ 20 – ouch!), but they only have one variety of red and white each (and the white isn’t cold).
Now, I’m going to sound like an old lady, but the volume in our room was up too high! When we asked how to turn it down, the guy working kind of scolded us, saying that people usually want it turned up, not down. He did finally oblige, though.
I’ll definitely be back, but I left wishing there were more karaōke options in Durham because my wallet was hurting from the monopoly this place has.

My brother and his housemate, huge karaōke fans, came down to NC from NY to visit, and of course wanted to do some karaōke. As someone clueless about karaōke options in the triangle, I turned to Unilocal,which led me to discover this place. As we exited the car in a dimly lit parking lot at night, and confronted the ominous black opaque «windows» and creepy red neon «open» sign, we stopped short. We then debated about whether to go inside, and whether we might be killed. We eventually took a deep breath, reviewed our zombie apocalypse rules («cardio!»), and entered. Reassuringly, the interior was much less scary than the exterior. Some disco lights, some tables, and a bar manned by an older Korean man. There are a number of private rooms with couches and TV’s, and we rented one of them. The songbook confused us at first, because it seemed to be only Korean, but apparently the pink-​colored section has songs that are in English (also with their Korean translated titles). It was organized by song title, not by artist, so it took me a while to scan through the selection to find songs that I knew and liked. There were two microphones, and a touch pad to punch in the numbers for songs, and to adjust speed and pitch. We found plenty of songs to sing, and really got into it. (My brother did an impressive version of T pain’s «I Got a Boat» and Ke$ha’s «Tick Tock.») Inappropriate Korean soap opera videos play while you’re singing your songs, which contributes to the absurdity and hilarity.
We were charged $ 40 per hour, which seemed fair to me. We also were able to get water to lubricate our well-​used vocal cords. My brother felt that the karaōke places in NYC were superior, but come on. Pickings are slim in the karaōke arena here, and I was happy to finally experience the wonder of the karaōke room.

Okay, let’s be honest — first impression? Muy creepioso. Yes, Star Karaōke does have black tinted windows. Yes, it is in a shady strip mall. Yes, the name is «*STAR* Karaōke»… but! I would go back, and let me tell you why…
The facility was good: inside are individual karaōke rooms with a semi-​tinted windows (so no shady business), with a dynamic sound system, and a disco ball for special effect. Clean, non-​smoking. Song selection? Not bad, a wide range of Chinese, Korean, and American songs. My only complaint is that the songs were not that recent, nothing from beyond 2005. Price range? $ 40/​hour for the room, and the guy was honest with us too (only charged us $ 35).
So I don’t know if karaōke itself simply inspires a heck of a good time but all in the nature of embarrassing oneself amongst a private audience and dancing under a shiny disco ball I’d say it was worth the trip. If only Star could get rid of those tinted windows…

Karaōke rooms in Durham? Yes! Now I can subject people to my rendition of No Diggity even closer to home! I’m no stranger to the original Star Karaōke in Raleigh; so I was super-​excited to learn about their new spot. The two are very similar… strip mall, ~6 rooms of varying size, BYOF (ood), sake & wine for sale (coming soon to Durham, at least; they’re still waiting on their permit as of now). The books look the same too: large selection of Korean & Chinese songs, with some Japanese and English pop tunes as well. A little frustrating when you can’t find some of the classic karaōke pieces (Son of a Preacher Man?!?); but forgiven when you realize they have included random hilarity such as Dick in a Box. Tonight, we had rented a room for 6 – 9, complete with spinning disco ball — but squeezed around 13 folks in there, with no penalty. Rooms do get stuffy fast. At $ 40 an hour, splitting so many ways, it comes out pretty cheaply. Great addition to the area!