Seattle clubs are making room for VIPs
Derek Jeter has been here. Bill Maher struck out with the ladies on a recent night. The Pretenders, Limp Bizkit, Vin Diesel and The Rock have been afforded the privacy of this room: The VIP room, with its own bar and bathroom, leather couches, plasma screen and pool table.
VIP? Leather couches? Mr. October?
Seattle may not be a stomping ground for the likes of Paris Hilton, but it's not exactly "The Simple Life" out here, either. Like it or not, shades of big-city style are seeping into the formerly egalitarian Seattle club scene, where a small but growing number of nightclubs are adopting dress codes, charging steep covers — and making room for Very Important People.
"I think the nightclub industry is growing up in Seattle. You need a VIP room now," said George Foster, owner of the Downunder, which added a private room with one-way, mirrored sliding doors last year. "I was hearing that people would have so-and-so down at their club. ... I think it's one of the components you have to have in a successful nightclub."
But what elevates someone to VIP status? After all, Seattle is hardly the Hamptons, where Sean "P. Diddy" Combs reportedly did away with the VIP room at his fabled White Party last summer, because everyone on the guest list was Very Important. Elsewhere in New York, there are VIP areas within VIP areas, "table service" versus "bottle service"; in other words, you might gain entry into a VIP room but that doesn't mean you get to sit down.
It may be a staple of trendy nightclubs in New York or L.A. but in Seattle? Kurt Cobain must be spinning in his grave.
"Of course, the culture of Seattle is against this elitist idea of having a VIP room," said Yancy Wright, who designed the newly remodeled VIP room at Club Medusa. "Regardless, it still exists. If there is a club or two that decides to acknowledge that, it works."
Club Medusa, which for better or for worse has raised the bar on upscale clubbing in Seattle with its $15 cover charge, year-round dress code and Vegas-style go-go dancers, regularly hosts local sports figures and visiting celebrities in its VIP lounge, which has been there since the club opened in summer 2002.
At Medusa, as with the other clubs, being Very Important is as good as cash; the VIP rooms don't charge a separate cover fee.
"It's a place where you can come in and relax and get away from the cacophony," said Theodore Taylor, who at 6-foot-9 is an imposing presence in front of the curtain. "Celebrities have enjoyed this room as a means to casually mix with (selected) fans without being mobbed."
Taylor is a New York native and 13-year veteran of the industry who now guards the room at Club Medusa. "Obviously, there's not as much star power (here) as New York, which is a hub of celebrity," he said. "If a person has a flair for personal style and carries themselves respectfully, it goes a very long way with me. But arrogance and disrespect will leave you out, no matter who you are, who you know, how you look or how much you've got."
A recent visit by comedian Maher got him in the door but not much else, according to a tabloid report citing "spies" in Seattle. (Who knew we even had spies?) After striking out with "every blonde in the joint" and being turned down by one of the club's "sexy go-go dancers," Maher reportedly huffed, "Seattle chicks are so uptight. Give me an L.A. babe anytime."
Politically incorrect, indeed.
Wright, the VIP room's designer, said he tried to echo the atmosphere in European clubs, with rich colors and lighting that gives the room a hazy glow. The room accommodates about 50 and, while not in use by Maher et al., can be rented for private parties Wednesday through Saturday evenings.
"If everyone could be in this room, no would want to be in it," said Taylor, who has worked similar gigs in Manhattan, the Hamptons and Long Island. "Everyone wants to be where they cannot."
It's that human desire that drives the appeal of such a gimmick, and even as some Seattleites may pooh-pooh such tactics, local club owners are starting to catch on.
"It creates a buzz. They (VIPs) are for business," said Greg Contreras, co-owner of Tia Lou's, which has an upstairs VIP area that most people don't know exists. "The Seattle crowd is so fickle. It's like pulling teeth to get people to go out more than one night a week."
Frequented by professional athletes — particularly during baseball season — the VIP room at Tia Lou's is shielded from view and features leather couches, a video projector, remote-controlled skylight and — believe it — a stripper pole enhanced by blue lights. Contreras started working on the room about a year ago.
"It's an invite-only type of situation," said Contreras, who co-owns the Belltown club with his brother, Eric. "A lot of people don't know it's there, which is kind of the way we like it."
The VIP room at Tia Lou's, like the one at Downunder, started as a private space for the club's owners to entertain guests. Downunder's VIP room — which seats about seven — has an intimate and almost parlorlike feel, helped by antique furniture that resembles "what used to be in my parents' living room," said Foster, the owner.
"It was just put there for me and my friends. It's a place to get away but still be able to see what's going on and who's coming in," he said. "If we ever did get any real VIPs coming in, we could give them a little bit of special treatment."
But not to worry; even if you're not a so-called VIP, at least one VIP room in town will accommodate you. The owner of the Bad Juju Lounge on Capitol Hill recently opened a bar upstairs called The VIP Room that is available for private parties.
"It's not really exclusive. As long as you're nice, the people are over 21 and they don't do anything illegal, we let them in," said owner Marcus Charles. "We've been booked every single weekend since August."
Pamela Sitt: 206-464-2376 or psitt@seattletimes.com