Supper clubs are back.
Those hybrid establishments that combine dinner and entertainment have been cropping up in a big way throughout the Chicago area. If you want a nice dinner out, followed by a couple of hours of music or dancing, the one-stop options have never been greater.
In the last few years we`ve seen Yvette Wintergarden do something few other restaurants can-draw weekend diners to the Loop. We`ve seen Espial, which began as little more than a coffeehouse under the elevated tracks on Armitage Avenue, expand into an ambitious little restaurant with a
sophisticated, attached cabaret space.
And in an interesting bit of retrofitting, Yvette, at 1206 N. State St., recently removed a few tables, added a small dance floor-and boosted weekend attendance.
Dinner and entertainment combinations are nothing new. But the new crop of venues goes way beyond the image of some velvet-tuxed combo playing
”Misty” tunelessly in the Rococo Lounge. These establishments are serious about their food and serious about the quality of their entertainment. You can`t ask for more than Denise Tomasello crooning at Toulouse, or Dave Green`s superb piano work at Christopher`s on Halsted.
Naturally, these most recent supper clubs are taking decidedly non-traditional forms. The only place that truly fits the typical supper-club profile is Yvette Wintergarden. It`s easy to imagine Nick and Nora Charles at the Wintergarden, drinking martinis and taking the occasional turn on the dance floor.
But these days, they also could down longneck beers at Club Bub in Bub City, or quaff blue margaritas at Mirador`s Blue Room.
Supper clubs are catching on in the suburbs, too. Fred Hoffman converted two of his Snuggery properties into country-and-western supper clubs: Cadillac Ranch in Bartlett and Dumas Walker`s in Mt. Prospect, where country fans and western wannabes munch on fried jalapeno peppers and buffalo burgers, then work off the calories with a little Texas two-step in the dance hall. Emilio Gervilla`s fourth west suburban restaurant, the Mediterranean-themed La Perla, offers a regular rotation of entertainment that includes contemporary piano music, flamenco dancers, jazz and blues (though, fortunately, not on the same night).
And more are on the way. Rosenthal-Newton, the team that runs Trattoria No. 10 and the Old Carolina Crab House, will open Vern`s Chicken & Rib Garage, a casual Kentucky barbecue restaurant featuring live bluegrass and jazz music, Monday in North Pier. A few days later, Club Creole and the Bayou Bar opens at 226 W. Kinzie St., offering Dixieland jazz on weekends to complement its New Orleans cuisine. Later this month, Vivo, the stylish Italian restaurant at 838 W. Randolph St., will open a jazz lounge perched above its dining room.
Not that we`re complaining, but why?
For one thing, restaurants in the area-and nearly all these supper clubs are, first and foremost, restaurants-believe that people want more. So, to attract customers in these tough economic times, restaurants are trying harder and offering more. There`s more value on the plate, more options on the menu and more features overall in the restaurants of today compared with those of, say, 10 years ago.
”If there`s a trend to more music, it`s only as a result of the growing dining trend toward casualization,” says Dan Rosenthal of Rosenthal-Newton.
”Dining is becoming the premier entertainment form for the `90s; first-run theaters don`t provide that the way they used to. Consumers are looking for a little more bang for their buck, and guys like Fred Hoffman are providing a little entertainment as part of their casual theme concepts.”
Rosenthal will feature live music when Vern`s Chicken & Rib Garage opens, but the idea ”scares me to death,” he says. ”It`s the quickest way to open a bottomless money pit that God ever made. It`s really risky; I don`t know a lot of places that make any money on the deal. They use entertainment to attract additional dining and beverage sales, and they`re happy if they break even.”
Having attracted customers, restaurants now must try to keep them, and entertainment is a way to do that, too. Good entertainment encourages dining- room customers to hang around for a few extra hours (and, the theory goes, for a few extra drinks or courses). Free or reduced cover charge for dining-room patrons is another incentive for diners to stay put.
It works the other way around, too. The China Club attracts plenty of late-night clubgoers, but in an effort to provide more of an all-evening experience, it opened Backstage, a small, upscale dining room with a full dinner menu.
”I think supper clubs are hip,” says Amy Morton, whose Mirador restaurant and Blue Room lounge certainly don`t lack for hipness. ”People don`t want to be cruising all over anymore. They want to go where people know their names, where they know the crowd.”
Of course, to some extent, supper clubs never went away. We`ve had music and food, on at least a limited basis, for a long time. Gordon features danceable jazz every weekend for a sizable late-night dining crowd. Andy`s has offered hearty food and serious jazz for years. Restaurants such as the Pump Room and Arnie`s feature irregularly scheduled nightclub acts. And then there are places like the Gold Star Sardine Bar, which offers light nibbles with its no-cover entertainment, and the recently opened Jazz Oasis, featuring light snacks and light jazz.
Bob Djahanguiri is one restaurateur who has matched fine dining with solid entertainment for years. Djahanguiri opened Toulouse in 1979, followed by Yvette in 1982 and Yvette Wintergarden in 1990; all three restaurants offer live music every day they`re open.
”Bob very much believes that dinner and entertainment should be on equal footing,” says Nancy Grossman, general manager for all three of Djahanguiri`s Chicago restaurants. ”We`re not hell-bent on turning tables three, four times a night; we want customers to think of our restaurants as places to stay.”
Grossman says the success of Yvette Wintergarden is proof of the appeal supper clubs have. Although it`s in the west Loop area (311 S. Wacker Drive), where weekend evening business is very slow, people have found their way to Wintergarden.
”When we first opened, we anticipated Saturday being a very slow night,” Grossman says. ”Instead, it`s turned into our most popular night. We`ve been getting strong repeat business, not even from those who follow a particular performer-though that helps bring them in the first time-but because they know they can come and enjoy the whole night.”
When Amy Morton opened Mirador, 1400 N. Wells St., in late 1989, she envisioned the upstairs space, the lounge she dubbed the Blue Room, as the ideal post-dinner hangout. ”People were getting out of the club scene,” she recalls. ”I thought people were tired of the bigger-is-better idea.”
So she created the Blue Room, a funky blue space with overstuffed furniture and piped-in music. ”And for the first year, no one set foot in it,” she says. ”It got so bad I never went up there; I just stayed in the restaurant. Finally, a friend told me, `You built the room for a reason, so do something.` I made it a little more upscale, but still casual, and started doing more live music.”
Now, she says, more than 60 percent of weekend customers who eat at Mirador spend time in the Blue Room.
”It`s kind of a variation on the couch-potato thing,” says Morton of the supper-club boom. ”People are going out, still into doing more, but they don`t want to have to move the car again. But they want to feel like they`re in a different place, and here, they can. Mirador and the Blue Room are completely different environments, and all they have to do is walk upstairs.”
