The simple pendulum remains one of the most fundamental systems studied in physics. It is commonly used as a model to illustrate a broad variety of mechanisms in a wide range of areas. However, in spite of this popularity, subtle behaviours still remain to be discovered and to be explored when the pendulum is strongly coupled to fluid mechanics. This is for instance illustrated in recent studies by Neill, Livelybrooks & Donnelly (Am. J. Phys., vol. 75, 2007, pp. 226–229) and Bolster, Hershberger & Donnelly (Phys. Rev. E, vol. 81, 2010, pp. 1–6) which highlight the impact on a simple spherical pendulum of vortex shedding and added mass effects. In the present work we show that the equilibrium of a pendular disk facing a flow exhibits bi-stability and hysteresis. We give a simple interpretation of this behaviour in terms of a two-potential-well description, only requiring to know the angular dependence of the normal drag coefficient of an inclined plate. We investigate the influence of turbulence on the equilibrium of the pendulum in general and on the observed bi-stability in particular. Our results have potentially important fundamental and practical consequences: (i) they extend the attractiveness of the pendulum as a model to investigate generic questions related to bi-stable stochastic processes, (ii) they highlight important fluid dynamic mechanisms, including turbulent drag enhancement and fluid–structure interaction issues.