Smothered chicken.
Allow us to elaborate.
The lunch special at the Juke Joint Supper Club is smothered chicken. We are not sure what the chicken is smothered in (but we can be sure that was not the method of rendering it lifeless), but the smell wafting through the cozy restaurant makes it seem it’s smothered in something gravy-like or similarly delectable.
The food is just part of the allure of the Juke Joint Supper Club—which, for reasons that will soon become apparent, will be heretofore be referred to as Juke Joint I. On this hot August afternoon, lunchtime diners occupy two of Juke Joint I’s five tables. Near the counter, a chessboard sits undisturbed on a square two-top table. Around the room hang vintage black-and-white posters of B.B. King, Louis Armstrong, E.B. Davis and Nat “King” Cole. Along with the smothered chicken, the day’s other specials are scrawled in Sharpie across a marking board: catfish, T-bone steak, gumbo. The sweet tea is so sweet that when you take a sip your lips purse.
Juke Joint I sits on the corner of Lexington Street and Miller Avenue in the Vegas Heights subdivision of lower-income residences and small businesses near the southeast corner of Martin Luther King Boulevard and Carey Avenue. The restaurant shares a building with the True Word Interdenominational Church, and across the street on either side are the Prayer Center Revival Church and the Israelite Church of God in Christ. Just around the bend is California Cutz Barbershop.
Juke Joint I is open from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.; closed on Mondays. But it is not the only Juke Joint in town. A year and a half after it opened in February 2005, a second Juke Joint sprouted on East Craig Road. That business, owned by Warren and Jean Lamb, is called the Juke Joint Bar & Grill (or, for our purposes, Juke Joint II).
Since then, the two Jukes have been butting heads legally. The owners of Juke Joint I, Donetta and Barry Kyle, claim they have owned the name “Juke Joint” since 1997, and in a civil complaint filed in March the Kyles (represented by prominent Vegas attorney Matt Callister, taking the case pro bono) accused Juke Joint II of trademark infringement because of the respective businesses’ similar names and appearances. Juke Joint II (represented by prominent Vegas attorney Daniel Markoff) countered by saying, in so much legal verbiage, that the term “Juke Joint” is commonplace and no one owns its trademark.
Callister has since filed a temporary restraining order against Juke Joint II, seeking to halt the Lambs’ use of the name. That means the two sides could wind up in federal court within the month in a dispute as spicy as the gumbo at Juke Joint I.
•••••
Donetta Kyle is a fascinating dual-career woman. She works 40 hours a week as a nurse at University Medical Center, and on her days off she helps her husband, Barry (who has been in the business for 30 years), run Juke Joint I. The couple found out there was a second Juke Joint through some accidental investigation.
“We were driving out on Craig Road and saw the sign,” says Kyle, who speaks softly and is almost drowned out by the low moan of a saxophone on the resturant’s sound system. “They were there for over a year, maybe longer, before they actually opened. We had to tell them, ‘You are using our name, and you can’t have it.’ ”
The Kyles began using Juke Joint in 1997, but construction delays (something about having to expand the building to the sidewalk and other pesky matters) pushed the opening to 2005. She says that since Juke Joint II opened, “we have been having a lot of confusion. Every day—sometimes five and 10 times a day—we have been getting calls for the other place.” The confusion ebbed somewhat when the Aliante View newspaper ran a front-page story with the headline “Juke Joint confusion,” which helped those in the neighborhood sort out who was whom.
But the argument continues.
Kyle relentlessly contends that the term “Juke Joint” is part of her heritage. She was raised in the South, in Dallas, and says that juke joints were mythological spots she knew about only through secondhand accounts.
“I remember a lot of these hole-in-the-wall places, and we weren’t allowed to go there, as kids,” she says, chuckling. “Of course, our parents did go down there and used the term ‘juke joint’ as the places where they would go and drink, smoke, listen to music. The food was just a little extra.”
By that assessment, Juke Joint I is similar to a true juke joint only because it is a hole in the wall. It seats 25 patrons, total. Smoking, drinking and gambling are off-limits.
But Kyle is adamant that her restaurant is more true to the spirit of juke joints than is the more spacious Juke Joint II.
“A juke joint is definitely not a beautiful building, with perfect architecture. It is literally a hole in the wall,” she says. “That’s why we’re so determined that they shouldn’t have the name, because it is really a part of our culture.”
Kyle says she wants to educate her customers about the rich history of juke joints. “It’s in our food, it’s in the type of music we listen to,” says Kyle, whose joint plays the music of the figures gracing the walls but does not offer live music. “Look at the history of jazz players, primarily blues players. That’s primarily where black music originated. All blues and jazz players came out of juke joints because they were not allowed to play that type of music in church. You’re either gospel or you’re blues. They are basically the same thing; the only difference was the words.”
And, as Kyle says, the only places to play were in church or in a juke joint.
“Those were the only two options,” she says, pausing for a breath as if exasperated. “This is frustrating.”
•••••
About six miles away from Juke Joint I, where Lamb Boulevard meets East Craig Road, is Juke Joint II. The business is spliced to conform to Nevada’s no-smoking ordinance. One side is for dining, the other for gaming, drinking and sports telecasts.
Gambling is not only allowed but encouraged, with 15 video poker machines ringing the bar, which (coincidentally) features 15 beers on tap. Three flat-screen TVs loom over the bar crowd, and in the corner of Juke Joint II a big-screen is projecting NASCAR Nextel Cup race highlights.
It is roughly the same layout as many sports bars in town—Big Dog’s and Big Inning come to mind. Clean, serviceable and powered by a friendly staff, Juke Joint II seems to be building a core of loyal patrons.
We presume that to be the case, anyway. But co-owner Warren Lamb is not eager to talk about the conflict between his business and Juke Joint I. When he was asked about the case, he presented Markoff’s business card and said he didn’t want to talk.
When asked if he and Jean were at all related to the famous Lamb family of Southern Nevada, he walked off while mumbling something like, “If I was we wouldn’t be having this conversation.” Or maybe it was, “If I wasn’t, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.” Calls to clarify his familial status were not returned, but one member of the Lamb family—Darwin Lamb, brother of Ralph Lamb, who lives in Cedar City, Utah—said these Lambs are not members of his immediate family.
Markoff makes a clear case on behalf of his client. He refers to his Webster’s New World College Dictionary (seventh edition) to prove “juke joint” is a term familiar enough to merit an entry. And, of course, there it is: “Juke joint: A small, inexpensive tavern or roadhouse with a jukebox playing music for dancing.”
Markoff exhibits his own frustration when asked about the confusion over the names.
“Those guys—the term ‘juke joint’ is like saloon and café. It is merely a descriptive word. I don’t know how else to put it,” he says during a phone interview. “It’s all the same thing and they have no exclusive right to it.”
Markoff is given a hypothetical circumstance: Remember the Saloon, the bar-restaurant at the ground level of Neonopolis that closed a couple of years ago? In your view, another Saloon could have opened and been protected, correct?
“That’s right,” Markoff said.
The attorney says the Lambs “don’t care at all about the other place. All I can tell you is that they don’t want a big fight over this thing. They are pretty easygoing folks.”
He says the Kyles are out for cash.
“They wanted more money, and it started sounding like a shakedown to me,” Markoff says. “But [the Lambs] have a right to use it, will fight to use it and will use it.”
•••••
Donetta Kyle is about finished talking. There is a busy din emanating from her kitchen, meaning she is probably needed. She recalls that there was a time, early on, when Juke Joint II said it would simply change its name to the Jukebox to avoid any confusion or ill will.
“They had a different attorney then,” she says, referring to John C. Lambertsen, who originally represented Juke Joint II’s management company, Crescent Moon Entertainment Inc. “I think that’s what happened. I’m not sure if that’s actually what happened, but they said they were going to change the name, and they haven’t changed it.”
When told that Juke Joint II’s contention is that the term is generic enough to be used by more than one business, she snaps, “Hogwash.”
She does have a theory.
“They are probably waiting for us to shut down,” she says. “A business like ours, if you survive for two years, you’re doing good. But we’re not going to. We’re not closing down and we’re not giving up our name.”
Period?
“Period.”
John Katsilometes is the Weekly’s writer at large.