“There is a tide coming back with more people, particularly the straight clientele becoming a part and supporting the gay scene,” he said. Compared to its northern counterparts, Orange County is starving for more community spaces, Cooley said. He pointed to the strip of nightclubs in West Hollywood, which are often booming with parties and packed with people.Ī typical night in Long Beach could include using a rainbow-patterned crosswalk to get from one LGBTQ nightclub to the next. Most recently, a speakeasy-style bar called Holiday occupied the space.Ĭraig Cooley, president of Laguna Beach Pride 365, agreed that there is no shortage of LGBTQ folks in Orange County, just a dearth of spaces to meet. The chosen location has a history in the community - it was previously home to another gay club called Lion’s Den. He found the perfect marriage of “concept and value for money and location” in Costa Mesa by January. Los Angeles was too expensive, but Orange County held a certain allure. “I recognized that right away.”Ībout a year ago, Nero began hunting for space to open his club. “I felt like Orange County has a bad rap, and I think it’s more sophisticated than people give it credit for,” he said. After living in Los Angeles for 10 years, the native Australian moved to Newport Beach in December to be closer to the new venue - “I’m married to the job,” he said. Nero, who has produced events from New York to Los Angeles for the likes of Katy Perry and Angelina Jolie, sees Strut as a way to modernize queer nightlife in Orange County. Throughout the week, he said, the club will be rented out for private parties. Soon after the grand opening - which is expected Friday - Nero is planning to host a drag brunch on Sundays. The bar will serve guests seven days a week, and the club will open its doors on Friday and Saturday nights. “You can’t take the queer dollar and not give a little something back in regards to production,” he said. The goal, Nero said, is to make every surface Instagram-worthy so that, soon enough, the club will market itself. While there are no rainbow flags adorning the interior - “our queerness comes through our design integrity,” Nero said - color runs throughout the club and pops in certain areas. A tunnel wrapped in neon lighting will channel guests from the entrance and open into the club, which will be alight with more neon and glittering disco balls. will be greeted by a collection of mannequins displayed below a glowing sign with the message, “You have been warned.” To the side, a backlit room will feature shadowy dancing figures, Nero said. “You just gotta change the party atmosphere that they’re playing in,” he said. Nero said he wants Strut to reinvigorate the queer nightlife scene in Orange County. “Now, people just want to have fun at the club. “These kinds of venues would be sexualized, as in go-go dances,” Nero said. Today, in addition to dating and networking apps like Grindr that facilitate meetings within the LGBTQ community, there are more options to meet people outside of the traditional gay bar scene. LGBTQ nightclubs served a different purpose in the past, Nero said - to connect people who often couldn’t find other places to meet partners. “We still are lacking that centralized hub,” said Tony Viramontes, director of health services at the LGBT Center OC. The few historic gay nightclubs that are left are scattered around the county.
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In Garden Grove, clubs blinked out of existence like a series of light bulbs at the end of a long night, leaving only the Frat House standing. Soon after, Woody’s at the Beach closed its doors. Laguna Beach’s famous Boom Boom Room shuttered in 2007. But one by one, LGBTQ nightclubs around the county closed. “There’s no lack of gay people that live down here, but lack of places to socialize? Absolutely.”Īt the height of gay nightlife, Orange County was booming with venues. “I understood that there was a huge void in the queer market down here,” Nero said.
Strut Bar & Club, the brainchild of nightlife connoisseur Luke Nero, will welcome the first guests into its disco-lit, pop art-decorated space next week. On an unassuming corner in Costa Mesa, beside a market and a couple of Mexican restaurants, a new hub for Orange County’s queer community is set to open its neon-emblazoned doors.