Put On a Happy Face

Smile.

That’s right. A pair of 1970s revivalists in downtown San Diego want you to dance under the most vacuous symbol of a vacuous decade, the smiley face.

Plastic foam smiley faces painted shocking pink, blue, yellow and green dangle from the Smile club’s dark ceiling as hipsters from San Diego, L. A. and abroad gyrate on the steamed-up, smoky dance floor.

Disc jockey Kelleigh Reed and promoter Steve Williamson opened Smile this summer as a Saturday night outlet for alternative dance music, a rarity in San Diego. With Reed’s synchronized mixes of techno, the club became one of the first of a growing number of venues playing this hyped house-meets-technopop sound.

“Instead of having everybody’s same songs, I’ve found a way to match house, techno and ‘70s that works,” Reed says.

Still, he and Williamson took a risk in a town that doesn’t take well to risky business. But now these young promoters are smiling, because introducing San Diego to techno and funky ‘70s dance music at a time when the techno trend was hitting L. A. and New York has made Smile a local anomaly much in demand.

“San Diego is really conservative and snobbish,” says Reed. “We’re tapping into a few thousand people who are beyond ‘I make so much money and I need to go to a certain club.’

“We’re as advanced as it’s going to get,” he says. “A lot of people here think they’re on the edge. This is the outlet for them.”

Reed and Williamson promoted another San Diego club, “Till the Cows Come Home,” last year in the same location, the Kansas City Steakhouse in the heart of the blooming Gaslamp Quarter nightclub scene. When that club’s patronage lagged, Reed looked for a new theme and new music to revive Saturday nights at the restaurant. He came up with Smile and techno music.

Patrons like the soulful, laid-back feel to the club. “The people here don’t look at you funny,” said Aimee Oliver, 22, of Bonita.

And Smile’s amalgamous throng has given new meaning to join-the-crowd anonymous dancing. “Everybody’s dancing, they’re not just standing around,” Oliver said.

Dominique Trapani, in town as a member of an America’s Cup sailing team from France, said he comes to Smile “to have fun” and “for the girls.”

The anti-smoking crowd has not found Smile. The main dance floor gets so smoky that it often sets off the restaurant’s fire alarm. On a recent Saturday, several San Diego Fire Department crews charged into the club only to find a room full of cigarette fumes.

An alternate dance floor offers ‘70s and funk music and a little more breathing room under the restaurant’s chandeliers.

The fashion at Smile is typical West Coast--baggy jeans and bustiers, baseball caps and even an occasional mad hat a la raves, those techno music dance parties where the Dr. Suess look is hip.

As the night winds down at Smile, someone in the crowd will inevitably look at the huge pink smiley face at the back of the club--the grandfather of all smiley faces--and say, “Have a nice day.”

Name: Smile at the Kansas City Steakhouse, 535 5th Ave., downtown San Diego. It happens every Saturday from 9:30 p.m. to 2 a.m. For more information, call Big Egg Productions at (619) 521-2931.

The Drive from L. A: Two hours.

Cover: With invitation, $2 before 10:30 p.m. $5 afterward. Without invitation, $7 at any hour. Invitations can be found at local coffee shops.

Price of beer: $1.75 for domestic draft, $3.75 for imported bottled beer.

Door policy: Although the place gets packed, long lines are rare. There’s no frisking and no dress code, though few deviate from the club’s street-chic look.