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On
the Upswing
At most nightclubs, the sight of machine gun-wielding door staff probably would scare away more than a few potential guests. But at Rat Pack's on the Avenue, it's all part of the show, and customers regularly line up along Orlando's Orange Avenue to get in on the fun. At Rat Pack's, the only full-time swing club in Orlando, the atmosphere is part gangster style, part Hollywood glamour and plenty of good times. Regulars dress in vintage clothing, sip bottled water and martinis and pack the dance floor for the Lindy Hop and the Cha Cha under the watchful eyes of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Marilyn Monroe. Rat Pack's on the Avenue is one of the city's hippest nightspots, located only a couple of blocks from the popular Church Street Station district in downtown Orlando. The swinging started as an experiment in October 1997, when the club was a rock 'n' roll venue called Sunset Strip. The establishment began hosting swing nights every Thursday as a way to attract new customers, recalled Ray Stines, general manager and co-owner of the operation. "The rock 'n' roll format had dropped off considerably, and the swing thing became our best night of the week probably within two months," he said. By December of that year, he and his partners decided to totally reformat the establishment, so they closed it for two weeks last April and reopened as Rat Pack's. For starters, Stines increased the size of dance floor. After that, the decor was relatively easy to adjust, he said. "We used to look a lot like a Hard Rock Cafe, with a lot of memorabilia and that kind of stuff. We took all that down and changed the color of the interior with carpeting, tile and all that kind of stuff."
Guests enter Rat Pack's at street level and after paying a cover with the doorman, climb a steep flight to the second-floor club. At the top of the stairs, guests encounter a cityscape mural, almost as if they were emerging from a subway station. They also must step around an antique claw-footed bathtub, which doubles as the establishment's beer tub, to get into the 8,000-square-foot main room. Rat Pack's regularly features live music, bringing in a variety of regional and national bands. The club opened with Swingerhead, a Florida swing act that has attracted a national following, and has hosted such noteworthy groups as Jet Set Six, the Lost Continentals, Red Hot Kitty and the Alleycats, the Chromatics and the Belleview Cadillacs in recent months. The format change dramatically increased the club's visibility in the Orlando marketplace.
"And then on the other end, we have 80-year-old customers. I have one guy who's here every night we're open, and he's 73." The staff has grown accustomed to welcoming entire families to the club, he said. "It's nothing to get a 40-year couple who bring their 18- or 20-year-old kids in with them. This is just something they can do together, which is sort of crazy. I mean, I can't imagine my dad ever going into a rock club with me." Stines said his typical guest doesn't drink as much as the clientele at other clubs. Rat Pack's does a good business in martinis and bottled beer, but also sells a large volume of bottled water."It's a lot more adult, mature audience, and they probably don't drink as much. Because of the dancing part of it, it's a little more in-depth and you need to be more sober. They'll have martinis, which are typically a higher priced drink, and maybe just not have as many as if they were doing shots or whatever." The drinking patterns of the swing crowd make it easier to practice responsible service, he observed. This helps keep concerns about liability and government regulation in check. "Obviously, you're always going to have people who overindulge, but it hasn't been nearly as often as with our old format." Many of the regulars--perhaps 70 percent--dress in vintage clothing and learn swing lingo for their nights at Rat Pack's, which adds to the establishment's appeal with tourists and curious patrons. Many younger guests have become quite knowledgeable about classic swing, big band and jump blues music. "It's like one guy said, 'If they're not dead, don't play it.' They'd rather hear Tommy Dorsey or Glenn Miller or Frank Sinatra, or a band who does their own material because so many of these bands we're using now have their own independent CDs out or they're almost to that point. The DJ plays stuff like Big Bad Voodoo Daddy and the Cherry Poppin' Daddies, but the kids don't want to hear somebody come in here and do covers of that stuff." Many older patrons like swing and jump blues because the music has a "cool" appeal, he said. "There's a lot of people my age who still like rock music, but I think once they pass 30, they don't know if it's OK to go into a rock club anymore. Even though they might still listen to Van Halen at home, they don't know if that's OK to do out at a club somewhere." Swing dancing is more interactive than many other styles, which attracts many people tired of the impersonal nature of recent dance trends. "You can actually go up and ask somebody to dance," Stines said. "You could to a degree with rock 'n' roll, but that's no so much a couple thing. You're just sort of out there jumping around by yourself more or less." The club offers dance lessons two nights a week. On Thursday nights, the lessons are free and geared toward beginners who need to know basic steps. On Wednesday nights, the sessions are more in-depth, covering beginners, intermediates and advanced dancers who want to sharpen their skills and learn new techniques. The classes, which are scheduled early in the evenings, generally attract 50 to 75 dancers on a typical Wednesday night. "A lot of times, we find that people come on Thursday and get a feel for it and check it out and then return the following week for more in-depth instruction." Besides
dance lessons and live music, the club has hosted special events around
CD releases and holidays. Swingerhead celebrated the release
of its independent CD at the club, and Rat Pack's also hosted a major
party for the release of "Swing This, Baby,"
a compilation CD featuring several popular swing and jump blues acts.
Although some critics have dismissed swing as a fad, Stines believes its appeal has staying power. Demand is still growing for swing in many markets, he said."I look at alternative music and house music and grunge and some of these other types of music that have come out in recent years, and those things seem to run five years or so. When you consider that those were brand new things that took some time for people to get used to them, but you look at this as something that's been around for 60 years or so, I would think that it's got some longevity. "You've
got the older crowd that's been dying for a place to go out to, and
then the younger crowd is really embracing
it, too. I would think that has several years to go. ... It's great
to be on the edge of something that's on the upswing, pardon the pun." |
O
"This
is the best place to dance in town," said Charity Smith, a petite twentysomething
with a gold stud through her tongue. "I come here all the time because
I really like the atmosphere and the dancing," she added before racing
back to the dance floor to join friends in the Charleston.
Other
touches included vintage black-and-white photographs of Sinatra, Martin
and other icons of the big band era, and a mural of a seedy big-city
hotel that runs along the top of the main bar. Street signs reading
"Broadway" and "42nd Street," plus a simulated fire escape and clothesline
add to the feeling of being in a vintage metropolis.
"It's
worked out great, both financially and for other reasons," Stines said.
"It's a really positive thing because of the kids. A lot of the 18-to-25
people we get are the same ones who were going to rave clubs and that
kind of thing a few years ago. Their goal is to learn to swing dance,
whereas with some of the other formats, you run into problems with underage
drinking and drug abuse and all that. Here, they dress up and spend
their money on the clothes and then come in and take lessons.
"It's
a fun thing, and it's couple dancing. I think that's a big part of it.
The dance factor is such a big part of the music, and that makes it
really fun. There's a lot more '50s music involved in it than I originally
thought, and the kids are starting to get into music from the late '50s
and early '60s."
