theheaviesofclubland

THEHEAVIESOFCLUBLAND
Eight is enough when it comes to Chicago’s nightlife
impresarios. Picassos of the party, they transform a dark
canvas into a shifting mosaic of color, sound and motion.
PHOTOS BY SANDRO
TEXT BY LIZ GROSSMAN
TH E D IVA OF D IVI S IO N
M IA E L IM
“Somebody said that I was crazy, that I would never make it, and how dare I go west of Damen Avenue,” says Miae Lim, not without
a hint of satisfaction in her voice. One wonders how anyone could question the woman who successfully transformed an old Polish
bar on Division into a down-and-funky hair salon-themed lounge.
Lim’s laughing last now. Big Wig, her spin on New York’s Beauty Bar, may be located off the beaten path, but scenesters have
beaten a path since 1997 to its beauty-parlor-chair sofas, vintage plastic-bubble-hairdryer chandeliers, and hopped-up hip-hop,
acid jazz and lounge jams. Lim, who got started in the business in 1995 as a part-owner of the former Solo, has since sold out, but
her latest work of art, Mirai Sushi, again illustrates her unique vision for turning old, overlooked buildings into hip destinations.
With Mirai, Lim reinvented an old church a few blocks west of Big Wig as a chic, two-level sushi restaurant. Inside, plush,
sensual furniture, undulating ambient music and masterfully prepared sushi by Chef Jun Ichikawa perfectly capture Lim’s concept for
a hip experience that delivers more than just great food.
A restaurateur for now, Lim also is setting her sights on film and fashion production. “You start climbing this mountain you
thought was so high,” says the indefatigable, vivacious Lim. “And when you reach the top you do a Rocky thing—and then you see
that there are a hundred more mountains out there.”
Seems like for Lim, there ain’t no mountain high enough.
TH E GLO B ETROTTE R
JOE RUSSO
To Joe Russo, “cosmopolitan” means more than a pretty Martini. “Last
May I went to Morocco and filled a shipping container with furnishings,
carpets, lanterns and leather pouf seats,” says the 34-year-old owner of
Wicker Park’s sensual Sinibar, a Moroccan-infused restaurant and
lounge. Russo bought almost all of Sinibar’s exotic designs and decor in
Essaouira, a city on Morocco’s western coast that teems with craft
markets, or souks, offering furniture, decorations and fabrics.
But before Russo had scoped out the best locales to shop
Moroccan, he had already spent years traveling Europe and South
America, steeping himself in various cities’ bar and restaurant cultures
in hopes of implementing them into his own nightspot some day.
Sinibar bellydanced its way into Wicker Park after its concept
was hatched in a more intimate space next to River West’s Thyme
restaurant. Russo and Executive Chef John Bubala, the duo behind
Thyme, have joined forces here as well, serving a menu with French
and Italian accents in a lush street-level bistro. Tucked beneath the
restaurant is a plush lounge filled with Moroccan carpets and African
masks illuminated by the soft glow of Chinese tree root lamps.
The result is a “Bohemian bar and café,” says Russo, who first
implemented his ideas of global décor and music at the Funky Buddha
Lounge, which he helped Mark Klemen open in 1996. “I helped with the
image and design of Buddha, mixing Indian and Brazilian.”
Lately, Sinibar’s lounge sizzles with samba, African and Latin beats
courtesy of local DJ stars like Jesse De La Peña, Tone B. Nimble and, on
Monday “Soul in the Hole” nights, the very funky Sadar Bahar, who spins
seriously deep disco tracks. For weatherbeaten Chicagoans, it’s a
welcome south-of-the-equator escape in the thick of the urban jungle.
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T H E P A R TY P OO- B A H
B . J . M U R R AY
To understand B.J. Murray’s brazen knack for turning any venue into a wild rumpus, you must go back
“Anyone can open a nightclub,” posits the consummate schmoozer, “but it’s knowing the
to the beginning. “My college roommate and I would ride around Beverly Hills and Bel Air on our Vespas,
business of the night that separates you.” Murray’s instincts for nocturnal goings-on are razor-
with our mod haircuts, and find vacant mansions to hold parties in,” says Murray, who grew up on the
sharp—and delightfully unpredictable. The prospective setting for his next New Year’s Eve
other coast, in New York. “The cops figured we were rock stars.” Hundreds flocked to Murray’s early
shindig: the Greyhound bus terminal.
“outlaw” parties, and the same holds true today (save for the outlaw part) for his Windy City blowouts.
If he had to choose another occupation, confides Murray, he’d be a teacher. For the foreseeable
One of Chicago’s most colorful event promoters, Murray first created a stir here in the late
future, however, Chicago’s P.T. Barnum of parties is sticking with what he does best: schooling nightlife
’80s and early ’90s. Since then he’s orchestrated an endless stream of bashes. He was a driving
force behind the scenes at the legendary Limelight (the former North Dearborn hotspot succeeded
by Excalibur), Marché’s fabulous Oscar parties, and several memorable House of Blues fêtes.
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operators and keeping the masses’ thirst for entertainment well slaked.
“You’re not always going to hit home runs,” Murray muses, “but when you hit singles, you
just pick up the next day and keep going.”
TH E C H A M ELE O N
D IO N A N T IC
“I love taking a room that looks like shit and making it into something people
want to come to over and over again,” says Dion Antic, who knows something
about spinning a silken nightclub from a sow’s ear of a space. “Whether
they’re successful or not, they’re always eye candy.”
Self-assured and preternaturally cool, Antic belies his surname,
calmly ruling a small empire of clubs and restaurants crafted from one
simple idea, a nascent trend, or, in the case of one of his ventures nearly
five years ago—the former Bruno’s Club Deluxe—a seven-foot chandelier.
Ever the improviser, Antic has tempted fun-seekers with a full candy
store of novel destinations (Iggy’s, Get Me High Lounge, Toast), but he is quick
to torch and walk away from such short-lived experiments as Wicker Park’s
Liquid Kitty and the swing-dance supper club Olive. These he consigns to the
dustbin of faded trends, shrugging them off as pieces of ephemeral artwork.
Other times, he’s reinvented something too groove-a-licious to go to
waste. The original Harry’s Velvet Lounge was stoked on the cigar craze, but
when the stogie embers died down, so did Harry’s. “People were getting
wealthier and learning to splurge, and cigars were a natural part of that,”
says Antic, who resurrected the swank club late last year as a dessert, wine
and champagne oasis now dubbed Harry’s Velvet Room.
“I’m always trying to outdo my own things,” the decidedly unfrantic
Antic admits. “When it comes to do-or-die, I never have any apprehension
about starting over. They could take it all away and I’d just start again.”
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T H E CLU B H O U S E KI D S
S C O T T D E G R A F F A N D M IC H A E L M O R T O N
When Michael Morton and Scott DeGraff met at the age of 9, it must have been in a schoolyard full
we designed Nine and Ghost Bar for our customers who’d grown older with us.” For Morton, the
of colorful twisting slides, ropes and high-flying swings. The lifelong friends have an innate divining
son of legendary Chicago restaurateur Arnie Morton (Morton’s of Chicago steakhouses) and
rod for pure fun, creating playground after playground for themselves and others—from the Mardi
brother to Hard Rock Café creator Peter Morton, and DeGraff, a former real-estate attorney with a
Gras party scene of Drink Chicago (now Drink and Eat, Too!) to the urbane Nine and Ghost Bar.
keen eye for restaurant design, the concept was a no-brainer.
Drink, uncorked on Fulton Street in 1992 and relocated a couple of blocks away a few years
Opened last April, Nine is a millennial take on the classic American steakhouse, a
ago, was the tandem’s first coup. A massive 25,000-square-foot nightclub, its kaleidoscopic series
postmodern supper club with a touch of 1920s Art Deco glitz. Plush chocolate suede booths
of themed environments boosted the mega-club concept pioneered by the long-shuttered Shelter
surround a granite Champagne bar lined with an iced ring to keep martinis, seafood and vodka
to another level. Drink’s buzz has since ebbed, but its longevity—and its sister club, Drink Las
chilled; the menu includes beluga, osetra and sevruga caviar. With the ethereal, minimalist Ghost
Vegas, opened in 1995—speak to Morton’s and DeGraff’s business savvy.
Bar secreted above, and a high-tech computerized lighting system subtly changing Nine’s environs
With Randolph Street’s Nine, the two (with the help of managing partner Michael Kornick
of MK) sought a more grown-up clubhouse. “Our personal tastes have changed,” DeGraff says, “so
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from blue to purple to gold as the night marches on, Morton’s and DeGraff’s clubhouse coterie isn’t
going anywhere any time soon.
TH E M A E S TRO
JOE BRYL
“Passionate” doesn’t do justice to how Joe Bryl, a manager and DJ at
the enduringly hip Funky Buddha Lounge, feels about music.
“Dependent” is more like it.
“I listened to punk as a kid,” says the native South Sider. “Then
I went from African to jazz to soul to R&B. I took a lot of time learning
music.” Bryl’s musical erudition bursts into full bloom every Friday
night at the Buddha, when he’s manning the DJ booth and turning the
club into his personal sonic playground. Striving to introduce daring
sounds to steadfast patrons and newcomers alike, Bryl also brings in
DJs and musicians from Berlin, Paris, Japan, London and New York, as
well as brash young spinners from Chicago.
“I’m allowed the option to do things, and if there’s some artist, DJ or
musician who complements what we’re doing here, then I like to seek out
that talent,” says Bryl, who’s been a DJ at the club for four years. “We’re
willing to take chances and to lead the audience instead of vice versa.”
Bryl perfected his skills in the early ’90s at the late-night parties
thrown at Boys Town’s Ooh-La-La! with friends Donnie Madia, co-owner
of Blackbird, and Steve Harris of Watusi. “It was a place where people
could hang out, eat, and listen to interesting music that was based on
jazz, soul and the Brazilian kind of rare groove sound,” he explains. The
scene whetted his appetite for creating the sort of sophisticated
music-loving crowd he thrives on.
Besides his Friday night stint at the DJ table, Bryl has adopted
Wednesday nights to showcase avant-garde DJs and new beats to
audiences weaned on mainstream hip-hop, house and techno vibes—
proof positive that he’s more about the music than winning fame as a
celebrity spinmeister. “I don’t have a DJ name,” Bryl says, “although they
call me ‘Maestro’ here, which means ‘teacher’ in Spanish. I don’t use it
professionally, but if people want to call me that, that’s fine. Part of my
function at the club is to open doors for people and to expand horizons.”
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TH E RI N G M A S TE R
B IL LY D E C
On the opening night for the dance club Circus about a year and a half ago,
its proprietor, Billy Dec, was nowhere to be found. He’d sequestered
himself in an office to cram in a last-minute study session for a law exam
the next day. Clearly, this is a guy who thrives on chaos.
As the pointman for Circus and Dragon Room, Dec can usually be
found prowling the velvet ropes and VIP areas. His zen-like calm in the
midst of pandemonium may have been honed in Thailand, where he
competed in kickboxing competitions after graduating from college and
before wading into mock trial battles at Kent Law School.
Upon his return in 1995, Dec played a part in opening Solo, a club on
Goose Island since subsumed by Dion Antic’s short-lived Olive and Hell
nightspots. Two years later, he helped launch Dragon Room, an Asianinfluenced sushi bar/industrial nightclub hybrid.
The Circus came to town not long after, a sinuous 18,000-squarefoot space by local designer Jordan Mozer. With its twirling acrobats and
firebreathing stilt-walkers keeping the scene suitably surreal, and a lineup
of some of the city’s best DJs, Circus has emerged as—if not the greatest
show on earth—certainly one of Chicago’s top dance clubs. “The thing’s
nuts,” Dec says, rolling his eyes.
As if running two nightclubs weren’t enough of a juggling act, Dec
recently opened his own law firm. The same patrons he greets at his clubs
now come to him for legal advice. “They’ve been calling me like crazy
since I graduated a year ago,” he says. “They’ve always associated me
with a good experience so it’s very easy for them.”
When in doubt, ask the man who makes everything look so easy.
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TH E M A N W ITH TH E M I D A S TOU C H
TERRY ALEXANDER
Terry Alexander is a modest mover. The savvy innovator behind such hyperhip restaurants as Soul Kitchen, Mia Francesca, Tizi Melloul, the former
Okno, and Chicago’s newest white-hot dining destination, MOD., Alexander
is quick to credit his many collaborators for his unbroken streak of hit after
hit. But make no mistake: This soft-spoken operator is a born alchemist
with a near-supernatural talent for turning all he touches into gold.
To fathom the secret of Alexander’s success it helps to start with
Danny’s Tavern, the popular Bucktown watering hole disarmingly designed
to make patrons feel as if they’ve wandered into an urbanite’s ultra-chill
house. Alexander bought the joint, a former rockabilly-themed bar, in 1989,
and quickly enlisted the aid of his father to renovate the place (right down
to ferreting out hip ashtrays at rummage sales). More recently, he brought
managers Kevin Stacey and Kenny Kordich on board, crediting the two—
who’ve maintained such draws as underground DJs on Wednesday
nights—with the lion’s share of the tavern’s coolness cachet.
“They don’t need the old guys behind the bar anymore,” jokes
Alexander, who is just 37, referring to himself. There is something very New
York about the MOD. squad’s commanding officer; who has the presence
and slight accent of an East Villager. But this boy is corn-fed: Alexander
hails from Omaha, the first of his family to move away. “It’s hard for my
parents that I’m so far away, but they’ve been to every opening,” he says.
For the time being, Alexander is focusing on building MOD. into
another pioneering mainstay. He’s off to a good start: The restaurant,
featuring a post-industrial MTV-esque design by Suhail (who also created
the hypnotic Moroccan interior at Tizi Melloul), has been packed every
night of the week since its opening.
“Kelly is so passionate about what she does,” says Alexander of
chef/partner Kelly Courtney, whose organic-derived menu bulwarks what
he calls a “chef-driven” restaurant. “For me, it’s an honor to be with this
group. We’re just trying to have some fun.”
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