Town Danceboutique, Washington, D.C.

After our dinner at Jack's last night, instead of going to some of the nightclubs in the immediate vicinity, my friend Mark wanted to try the new place at 8th and U called Town Danceboutique. So, off we went, abandoning the hard-found parking place we'd gotten over near 17th Street. And, of course, there's little on-street parking around Town and the neighborhood there is a little, um, "transitional," so we had to park in one of their overflow "secure" parking lots for a $15 fee.

Town appears to be in an old warehouse, and looks rather unprepossessing on the outside. It's been thoroughly gutted and redone on the inside into a nice, modern club. Before getting in, though, one must pay a $12 cover. And, if one wore a winter coat in, coat check is $3 per article (and there's a tip jar on the counter).

Inside, the main dance floor is high ceilinged with a stage on one side. On the far walls is a large L-shaped bar. The bars do not accept credit cards; there are, however, a number of ATMs owned by the club (meaning they get to charge a fee!) scattered around for ones "convenience." Behind the bars are large, full-wall projection screens that last night were displaying a computer screen for "Valentine" messages from one patron to another (the club was celebrating "Valentine's Weekend).

As we entered, a drag show was going on on the stage. The hostess of the show had a rather disconcertingly gruff voice that sounded more like a sports arena announcer than a drag hostess. We didn't really watch much of the show, but I did get some glimpses of a couple of "girls" who had choreographed backup dancers helping with the song.

There was a $5 Absolute vodka drink special going on til 11 p.m. With just one minute left to go, Mark had an Absolute Citron vodka Collins. I wasn't in a vodka mood and ordered a Scotch and water. Oddly, they didn't have a rail Scotch, and everything was call. I asked for the cheapest, and the drink ended up costing $7. On top of that, the drinks were served in rather short rocks glasses, and, the bars were using crushed ice instead of ice cubes (crushed ice fills up more of the volume of the glass, so the drink liquid content isn't as great).

About midnight, they opened the upstairs floor. Upstairs was rather nicer than downstairs. Again, there was a large L-shaped bar with projection screens, and a smaller dance floor with a raised end platform. What made the upstairs more interesting, though, was a long, narrow room to the side of the dance floor with comfortable banquettes along one wall, giving people a (relatively) quiet place to sit, relax, and actually carry on a conversation.

As I wandered around the dance floor, I was rather surprised that with as much money as the owners had spent remodeling and crafting this new dance club, there was a rather pedestrian lighting system on the dance floors. Perhaps they weren't using it or something, but there seemed to be little else special other than a mirror ball. At some of the New York clubs I've visited, the lighting has been so elaborate and spectacular, it's sometimes entertaining just to sit and watch the light show, but not here.

I found the crowd to be interestingly mixed. The expected twink barflies were there, but there was also an assortment of more mature patrons, and I definitely was not the oldest person in the bar by far. The downstairs dance floor seemed to attract the t-shirt and blue jeans set (removing t-shirts is encouraged, but I did not see that happening last night) and the upstairs dance floor had more people in nicer club clothes. There was also a surprising number of females there, and, given how they were dressed, I think most of them were straight girls.

We left probably about 1 a.m., and there was a long, long line outside on the street with people trying to get in. Since I did not perceive a sense of crowdedness inside (remember dancing at Nation when it was so packed on the dance floor that one could not move ones feet to dance?), either the fire marshall is holding them to an unusually strict occupancy capacity or they are trying to create a strong sense of demand by making people stand in line. Everyone seemed happy, though.

Well, at least now I can say I've been to Town.