Restaurants : The Ins and Outs of the Door

Going to a nightclub where they don’t know you is an exercise in self-humiliation. The doormen oblige all pain- and degradation-seekers by making you stand there at the obligatory ropes for hours until you look and feel like a basset hound who has just had an accident on the Aubusson.

--Cynthia Heimel, “But Enough About You”

It took a while for New York-style nightclub elitism to hit Los Angeles. No one was sure it would work in a town known for its groovy laid-back inhabitants. But as anyone who’s lived here for any length of time knows, Los Angeles is an uptight place.

Insecurity is the plague of the young and the desperate who consider social climbing and “making it” in this town far more important than catching some rays at the beach. For these would-be somebodies, getting into the right club, where they can be seen by the right people, is a most serious matter.

But before entry can be gained into the hallowed dens of the hip, they must get past The Door.

I know it seems like discrimination to judge people on the basis of looks, but it’s not really, because they weren’t born in those clothes--they went out and bought them. ... It’s fascism and it’s sick, but it’s a living and I like it.

--New York celebrity doorman Dean Johnson, “Andy Warhol’s Party Book”

People have access to every piece of information in the world--therefore if they don’t get the message of how to behave and dress and be , then they’re dumb idiots. . . .

--New York club czar Rudolf (just Rudolf), “Andy Warhol’s Party Book”

Except for the fact that New York’s doorpeople receive scads of media attention, doorpeople in Los Angeles aren’t much different than doorpeople in New York. Most have a matter-of-fact attitude about their jobs and consider what they do, if not honorable, at least honest work. “Everyone who’s ever stood in line should work a door once,” says Loren Dunsworth, business manager at Flaming Colossus. “It really is the hardest job in the entire club.”

And these days, the term door man is out; some of the best and toughest guardians of The Door are women. “Having a door girl is the key to a club’s success,” says Frederick Meschin, who runs things at Flaming Colossus with Sue Choi. “A woman is more perceptive, and if she’s nice and charming, then people won’t feel offended when she turns them away.”

“We always try to talk to the people in line and explain the policy to them,” says Natalie Aboitez, who currently heads the door at Flaming Colossus.

“Even if you’re not going to let them in,” says Tex Boell, who works the door with Natalie, “you at least want them to have a good feeling about the club.”

What is a doorman anyway? Just someone who isn’t smart enough to get a real job. Are you going to grovel to that lumpish Cerberus? Or are you hopelessly addicted to the nasty taste of humble pie?

--New York Magazine food critic Gael Greene

“A lot of people play me as the bad guy, they hate me,” says Sasha, head doorman at Stock Exchange. “But when there are 300 people at the door, I can’t see who came first. We have to give members priority and then people who have reservations. And if you look like a total scumbag, I’m not going to let you in. “

They say if you take the time to get to know a doorperson, you’ll find he or she is a regular, friendly person. That’s generally true for most L.A. doorpeople in real life . But when they’re behind their velvet ropes, they’re snobs--professional snobs with neither the time nor the inclination to get to know the wanna-bes behind the rope.

And just what does it take to be a good doorperson?

“They have to be smart as well as beautiful,” Flaming Colossus’ Dunsworth says. (Almost every doorperson in Los Angeles has the kind of perfect cheekbones that regularly land them modeling gigs.)

“It takes a really good memory,” says Smutty Smith, who’s worked doors in London (Limelight’s VIP room), New York (Area and others) and Miami (Rolling Stone guitarist Ron Wood’s club, Woody’s), and is now working several clubs in L.A., including the very hot Enter the Dragon. “You’re dealing with a lot of (jerks), people who are either drunk or don’t know how to relate to the situation when there’s a lot of people waiting out there. And this includes a lot of celebrities who want to be in NOW, but they can’t. So you need patience. And I think you need courtesy. You can’t shout.”

“You need a lot of tolerance and a thick skin,” Flaming Colossus’ Natalie says. “We get yelled at in front of everyone every night. And then when they yell, I know I made the right choice. I mean, what better proof? Who knows what they would have done upstairs.”

People really do go to nightclubs to make fun of the person standing across the dance floor, so nobody’s real happy if everybody in the room looks the same as they do.

--Haoui Montaug, New York celebrity doorman

Who gets in and who’s left out varies at different clubs. But overall, most claim to want a good mix of creative people.

“You need to know who has priority, and who’s good for the club,” Stock Exchange’s Sasha says. “Obviously, there are rock musicians and actors, then you have other VIPs--people who own art galleries, presidents of corporations and friends of mine.

“It sounds stupid, but if you mess up, it can blow the whole club,” Sasha says. “One time a friend of Mickey Rourke’s went up to the bar and said, ‘Give me a free drink,’ and the guy wouldn’t, so Mickey Rourke told all his friends and they didn’t come here for eight months.”

Apparently, all has been forgiven; Sasha says that the “Barfly” star was at the club just last week with 100 of his closest friends arriving on motorcycles.

When the discotheque in question is a private club with a strict members-only policy, it is not good form to stand outside and beg in an unattractive tone of voice to be taken in.

--Fran Lebowitz, From “Disco Hints: The New Etiquette,” in “Metropolitan Life”

“It really upsets me when I have to tell people ‘no’ three times and they still don’t understand,” Flaming Colossus’ Natalie says. “It gets to the point where I just don’t react.”

“If I see cool people at the rope,” Sasha says, “and they don’t say anything because they know what to do, then I let them in right away.”

Pam Holdridge has the kind of looks that used to get her almost instantly waved past the doormen at the now-defunct Vertigo. Now she likes Helena’s: “We just walked up and they let us in,” she says. For Holdridge, there’s no mysterious secret to her success. “If you dress up and really look spiffy, then they let you in,” she says. Of course, it helps that she’s a stunning brunette. “And my cousin, Tamara, has long blond hair that attracts attention.

“It’s a game,” Holdridge admits. “You just look like you’re a model and act like you’re somebody. It’s all a facade, but it works. It filters out the riffraff.”

Still, there was The Incident. “The last time we went to Stock Exchange,” Holdridge says, “we were all dressed up, looking our best, and they were letting in all these short people and I don’t know, we waited about 15 minutes so we started to leave. Then they said they were going to let us in next, but we said, ‘Too late,’ and left. We thought we’d figured it out.”

Flaming Colossus’ Dunsworth says, “I haven’t had any trouble getting into clubs, but if I got turned away?” She pauses for a moment. “Personally, I wouldn’t go back.”

Natalie of Flaming Colossus remarks, “There are some people who we can’t let in, and I really, really, honestly feel sorry. I watch them walk away and it grabs me.” “I had to turn away a buddy of mine that I went to high school with,” Tex says. “I hadn’t seen him in four years, but Frederick didn’t want him in. He was kind of (angry), but this is my job--I get paid for it.

“The doorman has to analyze people not by the way they look but by the feeling ,” Frederick says. “If it is someone geeky, then you know that they can understand nothing.”

This, of course, sets up the perfect defense against detractors. Those who would criticize are simply not sophisticated enough to realize the art that is going on.

Club king Matt Dike, who now runs Enter the Dragon, feels differently. His old club, Power Tools, was the considered by many to be the coolest club in Los Angeles. But Power Tools’ doorpeople were never selective about who got in.

“I never took the club as seriously as some of these fashion victims,” he says. “We were doing it for fun more than anything else. And generally, the most beautiful people are not the most interesting people.”