February 21
...serving up your daily dish.
Is Rascals going to go head to head with Diva Lounge? A sign in the window says, "The Red Cheetah, Grand Opening, March 10th, Now hiring all positions."
What exactly is a Red Cheetah? Headliners Entertainment Group is the owner of the remaining Rascals Comedy Clubs (the only two listed on the site currently are Montclair and Cherry Hill, as the former Nyack location has disappeared) as well as a growing chain of nightclubs, including a Red Cheetah, which was described thusly when it replaced another Rascals...
Red Cheetah would be the older, classier sister who wears spendy lingerie and drinks martinis made with top-shelf liquor. Parrot Beach is the trendy but slightly slutty mini-skirted sister who gyrates on tabletops after one too many Long Island iced teas.
So that makes Palm Bar the middle child. A striking but no-nonsense kind of girl, she lives in the shadow of her more popular siblings.
OK, so we're not getting the slutty chick (although she sounds like a lot more fun...), but sources are saying Montclair's version of Red Cheetah will try to undercut the competition (Diva Lounge) with cheaper admission and bargain drinks. The picture above was taken at a Red Cheetah in Cincinnati.
No one answers the main line at Rascals Montclair. At the corporate office -- the receptionist indicated that the man who can answer these questions, owner Ed Rodriguez, is not around. When I asked her to confirm whether Rascals was indeed closed -- she said she couldn't say anything -- except that there was a lot of construction. Stay tuned...
Hey, I remember that night! I got a lot of compliments on that yellow bikini.
Posted by: Katie | Feb 21, 2006 11:33:30 AM
Such class is conveyed in that picture, from the original home port of Larry Flynt, of the happy threesome, no? Some schlub who probably really can't get a date on a Saturday night has his hands around someone with a model's baleful stare and a Britney Spears clone. And he is even tilting a bit from the penile joy of it all.
This will go so well with the new Urban Outfitters, I suspect.
But from my own (reasonably extensive) experience in the club business, lower admission prices and cheaper drinks attract right away what a friend named Maurice Brahms who ran some famed discos calls "the hitters." Those are the lads you usually only work your way down to in clubland, you never want to start with them. Well, in Baristaville perhaps you have to, but still....
Posted by: cathar (8T) | Feb 21, 2006 11:39:17 AM
Pretty soon I am going to have to request that my copy of Baristanet be delivered in a brown paper wrapper.
Posted by: Miss Martta (8T) | Feb 21, 2006 11:42:58 AM
Katie,
I remember you that night, didn't you slap me after I pinched your cute butt?
Posted by: The Iceman(*8T*) | Feb 21, 2006 11:45:32 AM
Given the vagaries of the club crowd, too, the new parking deck (all those corners and late night empty space) may now host an interesting grouping of business transactions. I'm sure Montclair's not going to be the new Reeperbahn, but I'm also sure that "battling" discos aren't quite what people who moved to Baristaville over the last few years ever expected.
Posted by: cathar (8T) | Feb 21, 2006 11:51:35 AM
egads, why can't something cool open up in this town!?!?!?
Posted by: Left Of Center, like Suzanne Vega | Feb 21, 2006 12:10:25 PM
Does anyone beside me picture a river of sweat mixed with hair gel sluicing down Bloomfied ave?
/These guys unavailable for comment.
Posted by: Eddie Shore | Feb 21, 2006 12:17:04 PM
"Cool," LOC? There are already any number of restaurants and expensive shops in town that style themselves as cool. Of course Red Cheetah can open. The questions are how long can it stay open and what kind of crowd it'll attract. Clubs and the people who work in them come and go, elements that frequent clubs do too. It's not the most secure business model in the world for all sorts of reasons.
I'm also curious if you'll also be hanging there. With folks as "classy" as that pictured trio, to be sure.
Posted by: cathar (8T) | Feb 21, 2006 12:21:28 PM
Not allowing hotlinking is like turning the window lock on in the car.
Here is the link, but I am afraid it has now lost something.
http://www.njguido.com/photogallery/DSCN0911.jpg
Posted by: Eddie Shore | Feb 21, 2006 12:22:25 PM
let me know when the Red Cheetah has Troll and Trollhater night
Posted by: The Iceman(*8T*) | Feb 21, 2006 12:24:40 PM
Cathar,
"Cool" as in "some place I would want to hang out at..."
The closest thing to my taste is that Eclectic Cafe which has:
1) too much smoke
2) not enough booze
No, I won't go to Red Cheetah unless I feel like cavorting with dangerous wildlife.
Posted by: Left Of Center, like Suzanne Vega | Feb 21, 2006 12:29:14 PM
I don't know, Ice. You, me, Mazie, latebloomer, montclair_is_crazy, Miss Martta, ROC, this is hardly the jet set, Even if we throw in walleroo.
I think I'd prefer to work the door or the floor (as I have done). There is something very satisfying about denying admission to people, or tossing them for "bothering" other patrons. But standing in a line at a club hoping to be selected as cool enough for entry? That is the ultimate in self-willed abasement, and I was always amazed how many human beings were willing to undergo it. And in a town where people already get way too upset when they have to wait in line to pay parking fees?
Posted by: cathar (8T) | Feb 21, 2006 12:34:58 PM
LOC, Red Cheetah won't last too long unless guys (see, I remembered) like thee go to see others imagine they're cool for hanging there. There's a careful balance that has to be maintained among the disparate crowd elements, that's necessary for a club to keep the buzz going. One it's hard to imagine Baristaville can actually maintin given the general fogey-ish tenor of so many postings.
Try the Shepherd and the Knucklehead on Belmont Ave. in Haledon some time for rational drinking. Or Fitzgerald's Harp & Bard in Clifton on nights when they have Irish music. These may be more to your taste.
Posted by: cathar (8T) | Feb 21, 2006 12:44:59 PM
"egads, why can't something cool open up in this town!?!?!?" Uhhh, like Cecil's???
Also, can't agree enough re Fitzgerald's, just please don't send the Montclair / Egan's set here!!!
Posted by: Rchanin | Feb 21, 2006 12:52:52 PM
I don't like driving to bars.
For somewhat obvious reasons.
Posted by: Left Of Center, like Suzanne Vega | Feb 21, 2006 12:53:52 PM
Rchanin, I apologize for mentioning the sacred site, honest. (Do you also recall when it was virtually next door to a Harley dealership on Lexington Ave.? Those were truly the days!)
Posted by: cathar (8T) | Feb 21, 2006 12:57:11 PM
I live right by Diva Lounge and there is brawl at least twice a week outside. I mean full on cops-a-comin-someone-gittin-arrested brawl.
Gansta night at the club, come 2am its like Watts outside.
I think the Montclair PD should just open a mini-station on the corner there.
Here's the question, will there be brawls outside of the Red Cheetah? Lickety split, I hope so. Maybe the Diva brawlers could meet the Cheetah brawlers somewhere in the middle and I can get some sleep.
Latin Night at Divas versus Hip Hop night at the Red Crotchless Cheetah.
Lets get it on. (up the street)
Posted by: divasucks | Feb 21, 2006 1:15:29 PM
Given the speed with which Rascals closed it's too coincidental that the vacancy was filled so quickly by this "Nightclub". Me thinks this was probably the intent of Rodriguez all along. Get a liquor license and apply to the township to run a respectable comedy club and then switch to something on the sleezier (more profitable) side.
Posted by: todd | Feb 21, 2006 1:30:32 PM
I'm all for sleezy, nasty, and dirty, but these clubs suck, playing the same predictable crappy commerical hip hop and dance music, that attract the same meat head, gansta wanna-be crowds.
But this is Jersey so thats par for the cour$e.
Y'all should check out the window decorations at Diva trying to pass themselves off as some classy upscale establishment. WHAT A JOKE!!!!!!
Posted by: divasucks | Feb 21, 2006 1:35:08 PM
Divas has the POTENTIAL to be a classier joint (it's decorated beautifully, in my opinion), but I agree with Divasucks, it's the crappy music they choose to play that attracts the gangsta-wannabe crowds. Hell, it's the same junk they were playing the clubs some 10-15 years ago. Bleh.
My advice to anyone who wants to open up a *cool* nightclub in NJ: spend at least a month researching NYC nightlife. Visit places like Polyester, Bungalow 8, Webster Hall. Set up a lunch date with Baird Jones, if need be. Aspire to be more than just another Jersey dive.
Posted by: Miss Martta (8T) | Feb 21, 2006 1:43:26 PM
Used to frequent the Harp and Bard years ago when it was owned by Jim Mongey who also owned the Dublin Pub, The Trinity and Molly Malone's. Is he still the owner? I especially enjoyed a band called the Wild Colonial Boys. I agree with LOC, though, not a place from which I would want to be driving home.
Posted by: BeanCounter | Feb 21, 2006 1:43:37 PM
Montclair needs a Bada Bing. Because all NJ businesses are owned and operated by made men.
Posted by: Jim | Feb 21, 2006 1:47:08 PM
