Just When You Thought It Was Safe
Little fish, beware--the chichi Shark Club is back in full swim. As before, it’s luring a Friday night crowd with an attitude as above-it-all as the mighty if miniature predators gliding through the glassy water in the venue’s giant tank.
The $12-an-hour billiards hall and upscale dance club recently regained its claim to the latter after an eight-month drought. A bureaucratic misunderstanding caused the problem, which was cleared up when owners John and Gregg Hanour (who also own Metropolis) got the Alcohol and Beverage Control board in Sacramento to modify their permit to include dancing.
The reopening of sorts (shooting pool and imbibing never ceased) came just in time for promoter John Joyce, who was left without a site for his Friday night soirees when his longtime home--John Dominis restaurant in Newport Beach--recently closed. But with permission to continue using the Dominis name, Joyce and the see-and-be-seen Dominis set (25 to 35) seem to be taking to one of Orange County’s plushest party places, even if they’re not in Newport anymore.
The Shark Club’s elegant decor mixes industrial chic and romance. A voluptuous red velvet couch with Art Deco curves rests in front of a roaring fireplace, which isn’t far from a sleek long bar stretching beneath expensive, minimalist light fixtures.
The 7-year-old club’s cavernous, dark main room houses 30 busy billiard tables, the big fish tank and a modest 10-by-18-foot dance floor. Oversized gold tassels dangle above large reproductions of European masterworks and huge ornately framed mirrors. Exposed pipes and air ducts painted black hang from above.
Model-handsome guys dressed in tie-less suits drink martinis and smoke cigars, and the women’s silken skirts are slit up to there. Like the club’s interior, however, its clientele mixes types too. Pool players prefer T-shirts and jeans. And while conservatism reigns, a pretty young thing was spotted sucking a pink plastic pacifier dangling from her neck on a chain of sequins. (It’s an oral-fixation thing, she says.)
For dancing, deejay Roly delivered a mix heavy on R&B;, packing the main room’s floor by 10:30 p.m. one night recently.
The club, meanwhile, doubles as a restaurant, serving lunch and dinner. Its menufeatures a Cobb salad ($7.95) and shrimp fettuccine with Alfredo sauce ($8.50).
Speaking of dairy, Now that dancing’s back on the menu, Club Cream has been revived on Thursday nights, courtesy of promoter Unity Productions, which also has moved its Club One, formerly at Twin Palms, to the Shark on Saturdays.
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Coming Up: Club Rubber will be held next on Friday. Bring an unwrapped toy or book for Toys for Tots, and admission will be shaved from $20 to $12.50. Techno-industrial band KMFDM will play. Unity Productions is co-producing the “Sparks for Life” benefit with the Santa Ana Fire Department, Galaxy Concert Theatre, 3503 S. Harbor Blvd., Santa Ana. 8 p.m. (714) 224-3006.
BE THERE
John Dominis at the Shark Club, 841 Baker St., Costa Mesa; (714) 223-0199. Fridays. $10 cover after 8 p.m.