Your Waiter as Cupid

After lounging around with buddies for a couple of hours in one of Koreatown’s booming nightclubs, Teddy Lee got impatient. He flagged down a waiter and told him, “Hey, try to bring that girl over, the one in the white dress.” Ten minutes passed, and voila, said girl arrived at his table.

Lee, a business owner from Los Angeles, was taking advantage of “booking,” a ritual at Korean clubs that cater to twentysomething Asians in which waiters will physically pull women from their seats to meet men at other tables. Playing cupid can mean big business for the servers, who earn money from tips, so it’s no wonder that some do everything in their power within harassment laws to make a love connection.

But it wasn’t meant to be this time for Lee and his lady in white. The stylish young woman with flawless makeup politely made small talk and then excused herself to the restroom at Le Prive, the largest and arguably most popular club in Koreatown. It’s not uncommon for bookings to wind up this way. Even when two people hit it off, relationships facilitated by a waiter often end at the door.

“It’s just a tool for social interaction,” says Lee. “You meet a lot of nice people, but like in any bar or club environment, it’s not a good way to meet someone who you would really want to date. I’ve never met anyone who I would consider having a serious relationship with.”

Clubbers of either sex can decline bookings, of course, but waiters rarely take no for an answer without further prodding. On a recent Saturday night at Le Prive, a persistent waiter was overheard urging, “Oh, c’mon, I promise he’s really nice!” After a few more minutes of screaming over the music, the woman put down the Gucci bag she was clutching, and the matchmaker eagerly pulled her by the elbow across the room to a table where four men were seated nonchalantly.

Women may initially refuse to be booked because they’re “trying to play hard to get,” says another waiter dressed in a crisp white shirt and black pants who, like nearly all the employees at the club, uses a nickname instead of his real name on the job. Other women skip the act and make the most of the situation, appreciating the fact that they don’t have to deal with clumsy pickup lines.

“I know a lot of girls who will just go and won’t really say anything, but I try to be civil and talk to them,” says Ellen Sim of Alhambra. “I think it’s easier to meet people, in the sense that both the guy and the girl are taken out of the equation. It’s not as uncomfortable as going up to someone yourself.”

The ritual originated in the early ‘90s in South Korea’s “booking clubs,” which exist solely for the purpose of introducing singles to one another. Taking the initiative to fraternize with men is considered unladylike for women in the largely conservative, male-dominated country, so the hotspots offered a satisfactory solution.

At the clubs in L.A., any woman not on the dance floor is fair game. Women may be approached for bookings as many as five or six times in an evening, while men just have to keep in mind the rules of engagement: offer to buy a drink and never offer the inner seat to a booth, in case she wants to leave. And unlike Korea, in the U.S. a woman can request to meet men--though this rarely happens--and she’ll be taken to his table.

All of this compulsory mingling proves too much for some, who call booking, at best, male chauvinism, and at worst demeaning to women. “I prefer to meet people on my own,” says Tom Wang of Alhambra, who tried the scene but now steers clear. “The clubs make it seem as if men are a higher class of human beings than women. It’s all a big show for the male ego--the fancy cars, the bottles of XO [whiskey], the pretty girls. The women are like commodities.”

Still, men and women are lining up to get in. At Le Prive, the massive, two-story space attracts young professionals and college students to its gothic-themed playground, complete with gargoyles. Waiters don headsets to help monitor the crowds. Oversized booths surround the sprawling dance floor, where a DJ plays hip-hop and trance music, mixing in the occasional Korean song. The second floor houses private rooms with karaoke machines for celebrities and large parties.

Karnak, a smaller club nearby, draws a slightly older--as in late 20s, early 30s--crowd. While most Korean nightclubs feature the same setup--tables circling a dance area, lights and records spinning--Karnak distinguishes itself with a live band, which belts out pop covers between DJ sets.

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In a neighborhood where nightspots pop up and disappear months later with little fanfare, Karnak and Le Prive have continued to thrive. Karnak has been open for five years, Le Prive for nearly three.

It’s only a few miles from Hollywood, but the night-life scene in Koreatown operates under totally different rules. Clubs usually require a reservation--if it’s busy, you’re not getting in without one--but that guarantees a table, complete with fruit spread or appetizers, for the entire evening. Instead of a cover charge, there’s a minimum purchase of a bottle of whiskey or cognac. Other selections from the bar are limited to a few beers and not much else. The tab for four comes to about $200, plus a customary 20% tip.

It’s a hefty price to pay, but worth it to many club-goers who feel more at home among the mostly Korean and Chinese crowd. Only a handful of non-Asians, usually men, can be found on the busiest nights. “I go out to other places, too,” says Sim, “but I just feel more comfortable hanging out with people who I know come from a similar background.”

Le Prive, 721 S. Western Ave., L.A. Open nightly, 9 p.m. to 2 a.m. 21 and older. (213) 381-7007.

Karnak, 3319 Wilshire Blvd., L.A. Open nightly, 9:30 p.m. to 2 a.m. 21 and older. (213) 380-1030.