Courting the A-List

New bars began to open like buds bursting in spring. By nightfall, the street was packed. Bartenders carried handkerchiefs to whisk away the sweat; serving hundreds a night was a cardiovascular workout. At 2 a.m., cabs clogged West Sixth to carriage away women in space-needle heels.

But it's one thing to operate a corner bar, where familiarity and a functioning television breed lifelong patrons. It's quite another to be selling the elusive concept of cool. Owners understand that the minute their place has arrived, the descent has begun. "If we last for three years, we'll consider ourselves a success," says Tino Roncone, the new owner of Cloud 9.

Today, West Sixth is showing the strains of age. Bars like Traffic have hired black-belt bouncers to break up fights. And the marketing specials -- like underwear parties, mechanical bulls, and an event that invited diners to eat sushi off a naked lady -- are beginning to resemble the last days of the Flats. The area is now popular with the fake-ID hook-up crowd. In many respects, West Sixth is following the same evolutionary path as the Flats -- only at an accelerated pace.

Says reformed party girl Jen Cochran, who at 25 has already aged out of the scene: "When you're younger, you think it's fun because you don't know any better."

So the A-listers have been forced to migrate again.

The crowd at Flannery's Pub at the edge of East Fourth is composed of suit-and-tie types winding down after work. A frazzled executive orders a glass of Shiraz and slips off a pair of heels to rub her feet. In the background, an Indians game is turned to mute.

At the center of the room, a group of East Fourth tenants catch up on their day. "This place is my Cheers," says 30-year-old Robert Vaughn, who works for National City. "It's a place where I can just chill."

This is what's best about the A-list: They're quiet, calm, and don't bat an eye at paying prices two or three times what you'd find in the neighborhoods.

The crowds on East Fourth are largely recent graduates of the West Sixth scene. If they venture back at all, they go for the memories, the chance to relive drunken follies. But now they're looking for a quick buzz, not a quickie in the bathroom.

East Fourth has become something akin to the hot blond chick who just moved in from California. The Corner Alley, the House of Blues, Pickwick, and Flannery's will soon be joined by new tequila and martini bars.

"I got burnt out of West Sixth," explains Sharon Kehoe, a sales manager for a computer company. She grew tired of the pushy crowds, caffeinated beats, and girls wearing flimsy tank tops in 20-degree weather. "It was just, like, enough is enough."

East Fourth is filled with the kind of anticipatory excitement that descends upon a town when its team makes the playoffs. Though it's freezing outside, people linger in the streets, pausing to look at Lola's menu and Pickwick's posters for upcoming comedians.

On a recent Friday at the Corner Alley, an upscale bowling alley with a martini bar, there's a two-hour wait to get a lane -- which doesn't get any shorter for the man who offers a $1,000 bribe. Gel-haired men stylin' like John Gotti wave $5 at the bartenders, hoping to get their attention.

The lanes are so glossy you can see your reflection. Dan Edelman, a recent University of Montana grad, grabs a ball. "This place might be the coolest place in Cleveland," he says, then frowns. "That's kind of sad."

He understands the irony in the ever-present quest for cool, the fact that bowling -- the official sport of retirees in mismatched socks -- is currently "in." But there would seem a rapid shelf-life to paying $36 to bowl. And by the time East Fourth is built to full glory, the A-Listers will likely have moved again -- perhaps even back to the Flats.

That's where Scott Wolstein is constructing a $230-million resurrection. If all goes according to plan, there will be a marina walk, a string of bars once again cuddling up to the polluted river, and a new entertainment complex, targeting the same customers who now haunt East Fourth.

"If that happens, we'll really start to see a catfight," says Vaughn.

Owners of the View are coming to grips with this. In one sense, they're a victim of the A-list's transient ways. But their wounds are also self-inflicted, for their strategy was one that's already failed repeatedly in Cleveland: trying to recreate the New York/Los Angeles/Miami club in the last of America's truly blue-collar towns.

"We're more of a beer-and-shot kind of crowd," says promoter Arnold Hines. Owners who fail view the city as a smaller version of Miami or Los Angeles.

Adds John Owen, co-owner of Dive Bar, "There's no VIPs in Cleveland, Ohio."

In our eyes, what initially seems "cool" can rapidly morph into "incredibly stupid," especially when it comes with a high price tag.

Such was the case with V Lounge, a New York-style club located in a basement on East Fourth that featured electronica and $12 Bellinis. Owners made the downtown club hard to find -- even some who dined at Vivo, the restaurant upstairs, didn't know it existed. And customers didn't enjoy paying $4 for the same beers they had for $2 on West Sixth. Three years after the bar premiered, it's now open only for private parties.

Creating a false sense of exclusivity can also kill your business. Tramp, on West Ninth, featured stripper poles and house music, but it was a block away from West Sixth. "People had to make a conscious decision to walk past four busy bars to get to Tramp," former owner Terry Barbu explains.

But it didn't help that customers were made to wait in lines outside in an effort to hold up appearances. "When we finally got inside, there was nobody there," says Vaughn. The executive and his friends would be steaming mad.

Not even money can save you. When Bossa Nova opened in Beachwood, owners hoped a high-class martini bar would score with East Side socialites. It came equipped with framed Picasso sketches, a bar stacked with Cristal, and chefs serving teaspoon-sized appetizers with unpronounceable names for $12. But the cavernous lounge was too big. Even with 100 people, the place looked empty.

To compensate, owners started running Wednesday- and Thursday-night specials. But they attracted a largely black crowd, not the wealthy socialites owners expected. "Instead of embracing the crowd -- who were good clientele -- and working with them," owners simply ended the specials, says Hines. The bar closed last year.

To their credit, West Sixth owners understand their current demographics.

"West Sixth is more of a B-crowd street," acknowledges Barbu, the patriarch of the West Sixth bar scene. "It's not as affluent." What they're trying to stop is the street turning into a C-crowd spot. "We can't give up and start advertising 25-cent cocktails."

Last year Barbu opened up Ultra, a Moroccan-style dance club that plays Top 40 beats. The place is doing well.

On a recent Friday, a group of college kids unloads from a bus in front of the lounge. Tomas Tatarunes, a 22-year-old CSU student who still lives at home in Mentor, stumbles down the dark stairs. He announces that the drinks are a bit pricey, but he's pleased by the sight before him: a crowd of underdressed girls in tank tops and vein-constricting jeans. It's the kind of view that will always make young men come back.

Asked if he's here to hook up, Tomas smiles impishly. "Abso-fucking-lutely."

Back at The View, owners have come to the realization that if they want to survive, they must reposition themselves.

At a Wednesday-night meeting, employees sit around drinking, while managers discuss new strategies. The first suggestion seems obvious: If they want people to come to the bar, they should probably let them know where it is. It appears that being exclusive to the point of hiding wasn't the best of plans.

"I tell all of my friends to come to the bar, but then they're like, 'We can't find the place,'" a bartender complains. Management will soon put a large sign outside.

The bar will also be revamped. Too many people arrive, see the large, crowdless space, and immediately turn around. Heavy velvet curtains will section off the lounge, making the space seem more intimate.

Bartenders are also cautioned against handing out complimentary drinks. Loose pours are also discouraged. "You don't get better tips for being liberal pourers," owner Tom Eggett warns.

Yet this too is a notion that seems to violate the rules of Cleveland. In a shot-and-beer town raised on the generous pour, few things create more lasting animus than a lightweight drink.

To club veteran Barbu, it all smells like a quest better jettisoned. "You can't remarket yourself back up into popularity," he says.

On a recent Friday night, The View is as empty as a Westlake bus stop.