"That's the first 'please' I've had all night," laments the bartender. "Well then, thank you, too!" I add with a smile and a tip. We take our drinks and scope out all the little renovations and changes that have occurred since my last visit. Though the dance floor is attracting bodies like a magnet, thanks to the efforts of DJ Chris Aurelius, it is the approach to Drai's that I've always found most interesting.
It's daunting, the car careening blindly around the ancient Barbary Coast parking ramp's tight spiral, wheels in 90-degree disagreement with the chassis. (Coming back down hours later into the blinding morning sunshine does not improve matters.) Walking through the Barbary Coast, a woman feels on display. Cat-calls and watery stares from the drunk and/or disorderly are enough to make any girl want to go home and take a shower ... or four. Just before the gaping entryway that opens out onto the Strip are two elevators and a giant Bulgarian guard. Well, much less a guard than a VIP host/door manager/mountain. "I have no title," says Trayan "Mr. T" Tashev gruffly. As imposing a fellow as he is, Mr. T is good to the ladies and always smells of Jean Paul Gaultier. It's the roughnecks who need to be afraid; I pity da fool who steps out of line, or worse, tries to cut the line.
But there is no line. Empire Ballroom's Late Night Empire seems to have struck a palpable blow to the loyal Drai's after-hours crowd and gone are the nights of a queue out the door and all the necessary finagling that comes with it.
As the hour approaches 4 a.m., the crowds do come. In the library—with its fireplace and Tamara de Lempicka prints and more candles than a Sting video—every leopard-print seat is taken and VIP hosts from Tryst (Victor Drai's second venue over at Wynn) flutter around their clients.
Closing in on dawn, Chris Aurelius is reflective: "I've been here since I was 21! I'm 26 now and I'll be here till the day they close," which he predicts to be before next summer. While the rumor is renewed each year that the Barbary Coast will be reduced to rubble, and Drai's along with it, since Boyd Gaming announced earlier this month that it will sell the tiny hotel to Harrah's in the first quarter of 2007, the tongues are a-wagging even harder.
Drai's is approaching the ripe old age of 10—the restaurant opened in 1997 with after-hours following shortly thereafter—and the talk now is of moving the club to Wynn, possibly the 2,000-room Encore, Wynn's second phase due to open between 2008 and 2010. Restaurateur and film producer Victor Drai will almost certainly have a dining establishment in Encore, and it is rumored that a climate-controlled, glass-domed pool area with a retractable roof is being designed to attach to a nightclub concept. If it's all true, and Drai imbues it with his sexy themes and luxurious personal touches, it all will likely have other nightclub owners seeing a great deal of Victor's favorite color: red.
Xania Woodman thinks globally and parties locally. And frequently. E-mail her at
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