The Club Life

So A-List’s newest intern has something to get off his chest.

It goes bottle pop, party pop, booty pop, and well – at that point surely a good time. This is usually a night out and about in the bright lights of the big city. Pretty smiles, cold drinks and top notch fashion – even on a Tuesday. As you wait on the long lines trying to get pass that over grown offensive lineman sized behemoth and velvet red rope, this is the only thing on one’s mind. With a $20 cover charge to simply step inside and $14 drinks you would think a nightclub is the most profitable and lucrative business of them all. Not to mention the price of full bottles which usually go for 1,000% of retail value? However, the thousands of party goers that roam city streets in the wee hours of the mourning never consider the fact that these establishments are the most risky businesses of them all.

The high price of retail space in NYC which starts at $65-$70 a square foot makes the leases at night clubs enormous. Furthermore, add the cost of licenses, kickbacks, and over-all time (most clubs open to huge political opposition), and the true cost of these clubs starts coming to light. Now we see why a $25 bottle will cost you $350 in one of these places. In the recent past most of these problems would have been addressed with huge debts on balance sheets with low actual equity to show. But at that time, who cared? Banks were allowing the money to flow as the clubs poured the cranberry vodkas. Seemingly, mortgages never had to get paid since most debts were easily turned over and renewed. Those were the good old days of last decade. Today, these new trendy establishments are placed under much scrutiny as to how they are financed (meaning heavy cash down) and by whom (clubs have notoriously been started by street hustlers and other criminal organizations). But this is the boring part of the story that no one wants to know. Allow us to fast forward to the good times. Everything goes well and the club opens up.

The first night is a hit. All of the big shots come out dressed to the nines and the entire time looks like a movie before the turn around. The locals come to the spot, Staten Island, Long Island, hell Pauly D, Snooki and rest of Jersey Shore also come. This is every-one’s favorite spot. Now – question to the young and energetic; ever wonder why your favorite spot is no longer there? Why the name has changed? That was not even a year ago. You just saw Paris in there hitting a few lines with Lindsey and Cy Waits came out to the east coast just to hit this club up. What happened? Remember that movie seen, the one that happened last year, well it’s going on tonight, up the block. Yes, there is a new club in town and that trendy spot that cost eight figures to start up is no longer the spot to be. The honest honesty of the situation is an ugly truth. If a club remains open for 2 years – that was considered a decent stretch. Note; most won’t even break even within the first year.

Allow us not to wipe the smiles from underneath our bloodshot red eyes just yet. Even in a recession new venues continued and continue to sprout up. Seems the young with relatively no money and no worldly experience cannot refuse the urge to dance to the loud music and pay the ridiculous mark ups on goods.

- Mr. A-List

Explaining Dress Code

This is going to take some serious thought.

Fact: All venues have the legal right to enforce a dress-code.
Fact: This is the venues way of keeping a certain type of clientele out, or to ensure that the desired clientele enters the establishment.
Lesser known Fact: 99.9 percent of venue owners always event coordinators and promoters what the crowd is going to be like. The answer would go something like this… “Our crowd is well dressed, educated, business professionals that often spend anywhere from $100-$300 per person”
The response would be “Are they Caucasian, African American, Latino or Asian?”

Now don’t get me wrong I am a strong believer in the dress-code system. I grow tired of seeing men in baggy long dress shirts that descend to their lower thighs. Or a hefty person who would easily fit a large v-neck shirt with a blazer, complain when he isn’t allowed entry with a 3x polo, baggy jeans and dunks.

Then there’s the issue of people wearing shorts. To avoid arguments I am going to stay away from this one.

What do you guys think? I left this open to interpretation for a reason…..

- Mr. A-List

The Curse of 71 Spring St.

There once was a place named Fr.Og (France Origin). The Mediterranean themed 2 level restaurant quickly found out that its bland food (probably from lack of budget) wasn’t enough to sustain it from such a high rent price! Quickly Fr.Og became a promoters paradise. After-Hours would go until 7am, the bar never closed and management even hosted… lets call it for lack of better words a ‘night were clothes were not needed’.

Now, less than a year later, the efforts of a few well known nightlife colleagues Richie Romero and Chris Willard attempted to breathe life into the closed establishment. They changed the decor, gutted both floors, added some vibrant colors and named it BEBA. Boldly keeping with a Mediterranean theme, the food was actually very good. The clients forged over the years brought great press to the new restaurant and everyone thought Beba was here to stay.

Then the CURSE Hit!

With such a high rent and a extremely successful restaurant across the street Beba quickly dissolved. Promoters were sought out and the spirit of Fr.Og was bound to be reborn. Then someone or something pulled the plug, and now Beba is no more….

- Mr. A-List