BAR/NIGHTCLUB: Deluxe
I remember going to Deluxe when it was Bar Deluxe three or four years ago. It was a rockabilly crowd and they had live bands there. I wouldn't have recognized it as the same place that I went to this Friday. First of all, I went with a bunch of model-pretty girls. Don't know how that happened but it did. I felt like George Constanza in Seinfeld when he stumbled into the secret world of beautiful women. Anyway, I went there with my friend Beate, and her friend Anahit ("Ah-nah-hee") was the one who got us past the velvet ropes into this place. There was no sign over the door and its proximity to the Las Palmas restaurant with its mile-long line made it seem like a super-secret bar. There were velvet ropes but no lines of people dying to get in. Maybe they knew they didn't have a chance of getting in. Inside it felt very much like an underground bar: dark, red lights, marijuana smoke wafting in the air. The drinks were expensive: $17 for a Cape Cod and a White Russian. The music they played was pretty good (hip hop mixed with '80s and '90s) but there were a bunch of downsides. No, not the wafer-thin waifs sporting designer-shredded t-shirts and mini-mini denim skirts. Rather it was that we had to pay $100 to sit down! I kid you not! After we ensconced ourselves in one of the many booths, not even booth, it was more like benches up against the walls, some bar person told us we had to pay to stay there. Fortunately, those model girls have no problem with money, so they paid for me. Which was perfect because I didn't really want to stand up for the rest of the night but I didn't want to pay $10 to sit down. Anyway, the crowd was ultra-hip and it made me long for my not-so-hip Westside. I felt really uncomfortable. I felt like the oldest-living female in the place. I just had to be. Like I said, all the girls were really young and the outfits they threw together were so simple and yet didn't make much fashion sense but since they were skinny they could barely get away with it. I don't know if I would go there again or if I couldn't even get in there again, but it was an experience. If you really want to know what young and beautiful in LA feels like and you really are young and beautiful, Deluxe would be the place to go to congregate with your own kind.
I remember going to Deluxe when it was Bar Deluxe three or four years ago. It was a rockabilly crowd and they had live bands there. I wouldn't have recognized it as the same place that I went to this Friday. First of all, I went with a bunch of model-pretty girls. Don't know how that happened but it did. I felt like George Constanza in Seinfeld when he stumbled into the secret world of beautiful women. Anyway, I went there with my friend Beate, and her friend Anahit ("Ah-nah-hee") was the one who got us past the velvet ropes into this place. There was no sign over the door and its proximity to the Las Palmas restaurant with its mile-long line made it seem like a super-secret bar. There were velvet ropes but no lines of people dying to get in. Maybe they knew they didn't have a chance of getting in. Inside it felt very much like an underground bar: dark, red lights, marijuana smoke wafting in the air. The drinks were expensive: $17 for a Cape Cod and a White Russian. The music they played was pretty good (hip hop mixed with '80s and '90s) but there were a bunch of downsides. No, not the wafer-thin waifs sporting designer-shredded t-shirts and mini-mini denim skirts. Rather it was that we had to pay $100 to sit down! I kid you not! After we ensconced ourselves in one of the many booths, not even booth, it was more like benches up against the walls, some bar person told us we had to pay to stay there. Fortunately, those model girls have no problem with money, so they paid for me. Which was perfect because I didn't really want to stand up for the rest of the night but I didn't want to pay $10 to sit down. Anyway, the crowd was ultra-hip and it made me long for my not-so-hip Westside. I felt really uncomfortable. I felt like the oldest-living female in the place. I just had to be. Like I said, all the girls were really young and the outfits they threw together were so simple and yet didn't make much fashion sense but since they were skinny they could barely get away with it. I don't know if I would go there again or if I couldn't even get in there again, but it was an experience. If you really want to know what young and beautiful in LA feels like and you really are young and beautiful, Deluxe would be the place to go to congregate with your own kind.
