Mon, April 28, 2008
A new breed of downtown nightclubs targets London's well-educated, well-heeled young professionals.
It's Friday night and a small, but rowdy group of students walks across the street from the John Labatt Centre parking lot to Club Mansion.
A few of the young women are wearing cut-off denim skirts, most of the guys are wearing old sneakers and ball caps.
It's not the busiest night for the city's newest nightclub since it opened at 89 King St. in March, but the door staff tells the group there's a strict dress code and politely turns them away before they can cross the velvet rope.
"It's never easy to turn people away at the door, but the dress code is in place to make sure we're always maintaining a sophisticated environment inside the club," says manager Mike Assaf.
"No running shoes, hats, hoodies, or torn-up jeans allowed. Think smart and classy casual, but the shaper you dress to come here, the better."
He adds that if staff do turn someone away, they make a point of telling them about the dress code and adding them to the guest list so they can bypass the line another night.
"It's hard to say no to patrons and their money, but in order to keep the right atmosphere inside a club, you have to stick to your guns and be selective," says Matthew Tsoumaris, one of Club Mansion's owners.
"We're trying to make King Street London's version of Yorkville in Toronto, which means going after London's young professional elites for our club," he says.
London has no shortage of venues targeting students, but there aren't enough chic places for the up-and-coming 24-to 35-year-old crowd, he says.
Mansion was designed specifically as a luxury lounge space meant to feel more like a posh home than a bar, he says.
"We imported over $30,000 worth of fabrics directly from Italy and England just to cover the furniture and for the drapery and another $50,000 for the sound system," Tsoumaris adds.
"If you're after a mature, high-end crowd, you always have to offer up the best of everything to make a club successful."
Mansion's main level serves as the dance floor and features a bar with large LCD televisions on one side, booth-style seating on the other.
The TVs typically show black-and-white classic movies like the 1930s Clark Gable-Claudette Colbert screwball comedy, It Happened One Night.
Tables next to the booths have built-in ice buckets for guests who splurge on European-style bottle service -- a bottle of Grey Goose Vodka goes for $200, a bottle of Remy Martin cognac is $450.
Mansion also boasts a large VIP area upstairs, accessible by private elevator, with panoramic views of the dance floor and its own private bar.
"A table of eight or nine will spend on average about $1,500 on bottle service alone and our VIP guests have been known to drop over $3,000 in a night," says Tsoumaris.
Friday and Saturday nights are their busiest of the week and between the two levels, the club can hold over 400 people and club space can also be booked for corporate or special events during the week. They'll be opening a rooftop cabana-inspired patio next month, licensed for another 160 guests.
But in the world of trendy nightclubs, it often doesn't pay to fill up to capacity.
"The last thing you'd ever want to do is fill up the last one-third of the club with people that don't meet the characteristics of your target demographic," says Mark Vandenbosch, a marketing professor at the University of Western Ontario's Richard Ivey School of Business.
"It's a surefire way of losing regulars and tarnishing the club's exclusive reputation.
"You really want to restrict the number and type of people you let into a club like this to have the right vibe and maintain a high level of exceptional service," he adds.
He says targeting older professionals avoids competing with Richmond Row bars that depend on students -- who are only around eight months of the year -- and can be lucrative, because this age group has money to spend.
Compared to some neighbouring cities, London has a higher percentage of young, well-educated and well-paid professionals whose luxury lifestyle often includes a high-roller nightlife, he notes.
But it's not just who gets in.
"To provide the highest-calibre experience for your clients, you need to have a well-seasoned and mature staff," says Rob Sassine, co-owner of the 29 Park club on Talbot Street, around the corner from Mansion.
He says the high-end nightclub industry is very competitive and a club can fold quickly if word gets out that it's not the right scene and the service does not always exceed expectations.
"The quality of service you can provide your guests, especially your VIP guests, depends entirely on the quality of your staff, right from a courteous front door all the way to the back of the bar," he says
29 Park can hold about 400 people, with another 100 on the rooftop, Sassine says. Then there's the VIP area, which holds about 20 and is usually booked three months in advance. The typical party tab there runs about $2,000, but with that price tag comes a lot of perks.
"VIP guests skip the line and have their own dedicated hospitality manager catering to their every need," he says. For the right guest, staff will run to the store for batteries, disposable cameras, or favourite munchies.
When 29 Park opened in 2005, it was the only club going after an older crowd and the first with a strict dress code and full bottle service. He says he's glad to see other upscale businesses moving into the neighbourhood.
That's a feeling some patrons of these high-end clubs share.
Back at Club Mansion, Urszula Kumala and Justyna Baba are showing off their dance moves with their friend, Matt Snyder.
"It's great to have a place like this in London, it's got great music, awesome people and it doesn't feel like a meat market," says Kumala.
Owner Matthew Tsoumaris says buzz about the club must be making its way through London workplaces, because their average patron is in their late 20s and they're starting to develop a long list of regulars Friday and Saturday nights.
He's also planning to open a high-end steakhouse next door to the club in a few months with his business partners.
"We're so grateful for all the support we've had from everyone in the city and we look forward to exceeding the expectations of club goers in the city for years to come," says Tsoumaris.
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