So we are staying at the Marriott Hotel at Key Center in downtown Cleveland. They have a restaurant on the lobby level called David’s, and a bar called Jake’s. The pool and exercise facilities are on the 4th floor.
So I took the kids to the pool on the 4th floor. I passed something that looked like a restaurant, just down from the pool. There was no name on the outside. I poked my head inside. There was a lady sitting at a booth, who just kinda stared at me. Looking beyond her, it was pretty obvious it was a bar/restaurant, and a pretty fancy one at that. There was a sign behind her that said “The Club.” That was it. Feeling out-of-place, I quickly retreated.
Looking through the guest services directory back in the room, there was no mention of The Club. Strange.
Looking it up on Google, I found this. Looks like it’s not a part of the Marriott business, but is rather one of a chain of private membership-fee-based clubs.
Club 33 in Disneyland is a very exclusive restaurant - you pretty much have to know where it is or you’ll walk right by. “Hidden in plain sight” in New Orleans Square. Also, the only place in DL that serves booze.
Any members or people who’ve been in care to expound? I once “wandered” in, claiming to be looking for the bathroom, but was politely ushered out in about 5 seconds. =]
I’m pretty sure it’s not there anymore, but in the mid-90s there was a diner/restaurant called the Time Cafe in Greenwich Village. If you walked through the restaurant, in the rear was a another door, which was the entrance to a bar called Fez. You’d never know it was there from the street. Cool place, too.
Houston has two Fake Secret spots–unmarked on the street but well known to most of us. Hey, they even have websites!
Marfreless is a bar entered through an unmarked door in the parking lot of the River Oaks Shopping Center. (Currently being remodeled by idiots–so it might not have a long future.) It’s rather dark & has a lurid reputation as a place for hot & heavy displays of affection. The quite informal dress code requests patrons keep their clothes on.
The Last Concert Cafe is a old Mexican restaurant in the arty warehouse part of town–very close to downtown. There’s no sign & the door is usually locked; you have to knock. The food is pretty good Hippy Tex Mex & there is usually entertainment in the back patio area.
I’m sure there are really secret places in town, but nobody has told about them!
Here in Alexandria, VA, there’s a quasi-secret speakeasy called The PX, upstairs from Eamon’s on the corner of King and Columbus Streets. They’re open when their pirate flag is flying and a blue light over their door is shining. If you’re not properly dressed, if they’re too crowded, or if the shapely hostess in go-go boots doesn’t like the look of you, you can’t get in. Once you’re in, quite a string of offenses can get you kicked out (like letting someone else in without management’s permission, behaving boorishly, or ordering something boring). Not bad, if you don’t mind paying $16 for a martini. Nice place to impress a date or a business associate. The bartender is quite a showman.
It sounds similar to a club lounge. I’ve worked in upscale hotels and they would have “club level lounges” on a floor. Usually, but not always, the elevator is key’d off, requiring a key to get to that floor. And when you go to that floor, there is a lounge for the exclusive use of people who pay more for club level at the hotel.
They usually have breakfast there, and drinks at night and we even had cookies and milk from 10pm - 11pm. You could check out there and get conceirge services and free computer stuff etc. Therefore you bypassed all the hotel traffic.
I’ve been there. It’s very fancy. Suit and tie are required, which leads to the odd situation of wandering around Disneyland in formal dress. I kind of wish I’d gone on Splash Mountain before I changed back into shorts and a t-shirt.
The place is beautiful. It’s all done in dark wood, giving it a very old school “men’s club” feel, and there are original Disney drawings, cells, and photographs everywhere. The food was fantastic - one of the friends I was there with had a steak, and her reaction to it could only be termed “orgasmic.” Pricey as hell. Dinner for the three of us came out to about $250, and that’s without ordering any wine. Definitly worth the experience, though. Also, Sammy Hagar was sitting directly behind me through the entire meal.
There’s this bar in NYC. There’s some skewed sign saying toy something or another and you have to walk through a subterranean unlit passageway that looks like some basement tenement hallway. There’s a bunch of antique toys cluttering a shelf around the entryway. Upon entering it, you are introduced to a gorgeous wood paneled bar with a bunch of good looking hipster types. It’s rumored to be owned by Tim Robbins.
Here’s an article from the New York Times about “secret” bars and modern speakeasies. It mentions one in Manhattan that you need to enter via a secret door in a phone booth in the hot dog stand next door.
A travel buddy and I were traveling through China. We accidentally hit the wrong floor in our hotel in Jinan, (hit 17th instead of 16th), and the doors opened right up into full view of a swanky “nightclub” that looked like it took up the entire floor. I use quotes, because each of the large booths had 3 or 4 very skimpily dressed women, with several men in expensive dark suits guarding each table trying to look casual. The place was entirely empty of clients or customers, and when the doors opened, the heads of everyone turned to stare at us as we stumbled out of the elevator. You could hear the proverbial record needle screech. An usher instantly grabbed us and started pulling us toward a table, nodding and smiling, while all the men puffed up their chests to try and look intimidating, and all of the women put on their finest smiles.
We’d had several drinks earlier, and my friend and I started debating if we should stay or not. My friend, the smarter of us, pulled me back into the elevator.
It’s not a secret, per se, but one of the best bars in Denver has no signage at all. It’s called My Brother’s Bar, and it has no TV’s and plays classical music only. It also has some of the best burgers in town and the bartenders have been there for decades.
It used to be a hangout for Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady way back when. There is a framed letter on the wall from Cassady written from prison asking a friend of his to come by and pay off his bar tab.
They also sell a crapload of Girl Scout Cookies during the season. Not sure why.
Where I used to live in east suburban Cleveland, there were a few very well-hidden bars that catered to the area’s Russian immigrant population. They were usually in the back of old shopping centers.
Cleveland also has The Schvitz, the last remnant of the Jewish community that once thrived in the now-distressed Kinsman neighborhood. It’s basically a Jewish bathhouse with a sauna and pool, along with a steakhouse and bar. The address isn’t published, there’s no Web site, and it’s in an area where one is very unlikely to just stumble upon it, even if they’re cruising up and down side streets.