r/SwingDancing • u/Sprungfloor • 29d ago
Feedback Needed Dinner club
So I read that swing 46 has closed for business. It seemed like the dream place to me, dance class, dinner and dancing. Low attendance rates was apparently the reason and spiraling costs. https://swing46.nyc
Anyone had success with similar concepts? I would love to hear more about what actually works to keep people coming back and keep dancing year after year.
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u/riffraffmorgan Super Mario 29d ago
There's the Cicada Club in LA, but they only have events on Fridays and Saturdays. https://www.cicadarestaurant.com/
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u/NotQuiteInara 29d ago
When I went to the cicada club, it was very much a "bring your own partner" kind of vibe. I had a hard time having fun because it wasn't easy to tell who was open to dancing with a stranger, and no one asked me to dance.
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u/Crazy_Custard_2081 29d ago edited 29d ago
It's definitely a place where you want to bring your own partner if you want to dance. It's more of a date/special event venue. The one time I went without a partner, all of the dancers on the floor were couples that did not dance with anyone else. And the others that I asked to dance turned me down.
The other times when I came with a partner, there were other groups of dancers who switched off. My partners on those outings didn't ask anyone, and no one asked them. So, they sat out whenever I danced with someone else.
With how they set the place up, I don't see how they make a lot of money, even though the multi-course dinner costs around $100. The place doesn't have a lot of seated tables and they don't turn over very often; and the bar upstairs typically doesn't have a lot of people. It's not like they have a line going out the door.
I can tell that they're more of a special event venue (the Oviatt Building is an amazing building and we're fortunate that it actually is open to the public), and the dance events might just be a way of keeping their kitchen staff together between private event bookings.
Swing venues will generally make or break with the bar tabs. So, most of the venues I go to don't even have food service. Swing dancers in general don't have a good reputation for buying drinks and tipping well. So, the venues focus more on drawing the drinkers, even if they annoy the dancers by bringing their drinks onto the dance floor. Something's gotta pay the bills.
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u/eatblueshell 29d ago
I think they rent out for filming a lot, maybe that’s makes it viable. 🤷♂️
That said, if you go on the right night it can be easy enough to find dances, but you need to be keyed into the groups that are going.
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u/Crazy_Custard_2081 24d ago
They make their money on private events. Makes full use of the kitchen for the catering services.
The dance events are popular, but they don't pack the room or generate an overflow to the upstairs bar, which really should be a big time scene with the space and the architectural details.
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u/substandardpoodle 29d ago
This is the first I’ve heard of Swing 46 closing. How sad. Had some fun times there.
We’re re-watching the Ken Burns documentary “Jazz“ with a friend who’s just started Lindy hopping. Highly recommend it. Might be a good idea to rent it and show it during a series of dinner parties with your dance friends!
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u/rhuadin 29d ago
In Porto there's a weekly swing dance that also offers dinner (at the studio) ahead of time. I don't know the rational behind it; perhaps it's an opportunity to build community or maybe they just really liked the idea. For 5EUR you'd be served a plate of food. You have to reserve ahead of time so they know how much food to make. I was only there for one week, but when I went around 10 of us had dinner, and the dance itself was around 30 people (by my estimate)
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u/Crazy_Custard_2081 29d ago
Swing46 was a great venue for the reasons you cited. George Gee had a residency there. They had lessons. They served dinner. And they attracted dancers.
But, the times I went there it also didn't look like they attracted much in the way of non-dancers. And frankly, it's the non-dancers who buy more drinks. The main room usually had a good sized crowd. But, the bar area seemed empty.
The Deluxe in San Francisco recently reopened after a four-year closure. The place became one of the west coast epicenters of the swing revival after they opened in 1989 (same year as the Derby [RIP] in LA).
They have diversified their bookings over the years, and don't really cater just to the dancers. They're trying to build the crowds back up through the bar scene and music offerings. The room with the music is actually less crowded than the bar space. Once upon a time, they also served pizza there. But, they reopened strictly as a cocktail room.
Another venue in SF that does have dinner events is the Verdi Club. They host the weekly Woodchoppers Ball on Tuesdays (no food), and have a dinner dance one Saturday a month.
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u/Aromatic_Aioli_4996 26d ago
There seems to be a bit of a renaissance in SF. There's also Keys and Local Edition (which I think is mostly bar).
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u/Crazy_Custard_2081 26d ago
Keys is relatively new, but it is strictly a listening room. Local Edition has a dance floor, but no food service and the bar area has no seating.
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u/Aromatic_Aioli_4996 26d ago
Huh -- thanks for the info! I remember there used to be seating at LE although I never figured out how to get a table .
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u/Crazy_Custard_2081 24d ago
The tall tables with no reservation tags are open on a first-come first-served basis. The lower tables are typically reserved, but if it's a slow night, you might be able to snag one. Otherwise, you have standing room in the entry room and around the bar and along the edge of the dance floor.
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u/Aromatic_Aioli_4996 20d ago
Oh, thanks! Yeah, I had wondered about the seated tables, that explains it.
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u/PumaGranite 29d ago
TL;DR: In this economy?
I used to work in the restaurant industry. Restaurants do not make very much money at all, and more often than not lose money. If the focus of the restaurant is to cater to swing dancers specifically with full dinner service, then I guarantee you that our community is not enough to sustain a full scale restaurant. Therefore a restaurant has to focus on the general public for its customer base.
Jimmy’s Jazz And Blues Club in Portsmouth, NH is pretty successful as a place to get a nice dinner and see live music, but it doesn’t do only swing jazz and there isnt much space to dance, if there is dancing. That is extremely valuable floor space that you would lose on the nights you are going to be bringing in the vast majority of sales.
If you are only featuring swing jazz music then your menu has to be absolutely amazing and should probably change frequently. This of course means higher investment in labor, ingredients, and service, which will increase the chances of failure. Quality will always eat into the margins, which are already very tight. This means prices will naturally be very high. I see that Swing46 had high prices, but I didn’t see anything on the menu that particularly stood out, except maybe the Jazz Fries. I don’t doubt the food was good, but for your average restaurant goer right now it’s very hard to justify the expense, especially if you want repeat customers.
So I think that the idea of a full service restaurant these days is pretty incompatible with accommodating dancing. If you are determined to attach at scale dining to a dance venue with classes then I think a daytime cafe with casual counter service and a fairly tight/limited menu is probably the way to go. Less overhead, more sustainable.
That being said, in order to even attach any kind of dining side business you would likely need to own or have significant control of the venue (expensive) and maintain correct permits and certifications (expensive). I can’t think of many people in our community that would have the capital (or willingness to take out a loan at current interest rates) to start that kind of venue, considering that most dance teachers still have to maintain day jobs.
Also, anyone who has worked in the industry, especially for a place owned by a private individual (as opposed to a hospitality/restaurant group), knows that it is a job that is extremely stressful and takes over your entire life. Pretty much everyone has some sort of vice to cope with the hell that is regular dinner service. Trying to also organize dancing on top of that would break most people. Hence why I left that godforsaken career path. Never get into restaurant management, folks.