Comedy Shack Owner Sees Success on Horizon : After a slow start, Paul Opel says business has been steady at the ‘luau of laughs’ in Simi Valley.

By Harry Capehart’s count, there are only two comedy venues in Ventura County--his own Hornblowers and the Ventura Theatre. But even the king of local comedy isn’t all-seeing.

On New Year’s Eve, The Comedy Shack opened in Simi Valley. A converted garage whose bamboo-walled, palm-filled interior appears to have been designed by a madcap Don Ho--a flyer tags the club “a luau of laughs in a tropical hideaway”--The Comedy Shack is decorated, bankrolled, cleaned and presided over by Paul Opel.

A Simi resident and lawyer by trade, Opel opened the club to fill what he saw as a void, though at the outset the most gaping void was inside the Shack’s 60-seat interior. The Friday following a full house at the New Year’s Eve grand opening, Opel stood out in front of his establishment and, as he puts it, “melted in my sneakers.”

“It was 8:20 and I didn’t have a single guest and a single comedian and I’m standing there in front of my club going, ‘Well, that was a short run,’ ” Opel says.

His comedians did materialize that night, as did about 20 paying customers, and since then, says Opel, business has been steady. He was worried in the beginning, but Opel exudes confidence now.

“I basically don’t have any competition in Simi Valley,” he says. “There’s 120,000 folks living here and a half-million people within a 50-square-mile radius. I think I can tap into that. Plus, the only bus route through Simi Valley stops right in front of our club.”

Details

* The Comedy Club at Hornblowers: Ventura Harbor Village, Ventura; 8 p.m. Friday, 8 and 10 p.m. Saturday; 658-2202.

* The Comedy Shack: 4397 Township Ave., Simi Valley; 8 and 10 p.m. Friday, 8 and 10 p.m. Saturday; 581-0783.

* Ventura Theatre: 21 S. Chestnut St., Ventura; 648-1888.

* Mullarkey’s Food and Spirits: The Radisson Hotel, 2101 W. Vineyard Ave., Oxnard; 8:30 p.m. Friday; 988-0130.