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NewCo No. 38 Gotham Citi Cafe
Company: Gotham Citi Cafe, 130 Crown St.,
New Haven (203-498-2484)
Principal: Robert Bartolomeo
Employees: 12 part-time
Founded: October 1996, opened doors April 17, 1997
Startup costs: $300,000
Financing source: Owner-financed
First-year projected revenues: $500,000
Projected profitability: By end of 1998
Written business plan: No
Principal's salary: None Service: Nightclub and bar
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Business New Haven
10/20/1997
By: Kevin Wheeler
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Market: Gay men and lesbians, predominately males in their 20s. Local crowd on weeknights and customers from as far as New York and Boston on weekend nights.
How marketed: Word of mouth and ads in the New England gay and bisexual newspaper in newsweekly and the New York and Fairfield County GayZette.
Unless you read gay newspapers, follow the gay community or recognize the rainbow flag hanging outside the Gotham Citi Cafe on Crown Street, you probably didn't know that New Haven had a new gay nightclub.
Inside, there are signs. A preponderance of well-groomed men, same-sex couples, transvestites and, several nights a week, a go-go boy dancing on a speaker wearing combat-style boots, a T-shirt and Calvin Klein briefs that give way to a thong.
The club opened quietly in April, drawing notice mainly because it was one of the first signs of retail life in downtown's rehabbed Ninth Square neighborhood. But owner Robert Bartolomeo dismisses that characterization. He is openly gay and says he didn't hush the opening, it just got more attention from the gay community because he advertises in gay publications solely. Says Bartolomeo: “We don't advertise beyond our market. We are the largest advertiser in the Northeast, as far as gay dance clubs.”
And he has the ads to prove it - bold center-spread ads spelling out the specials for each night of the week, from a piano cabaret on Wednesdays to a dance party on Fridays with a NYC deejay, and declaring “We're Here, We're Queer, Get Over It,” or boasting a clientèle so beautiful that “you won't be waking up next to a dog.”
Bartolomeo knows the competition, which he says is easy since the gay market has so few choices. Among those are Triangle's in Danbury, the Brook Café in Westport, Choices in Wallingford, which is closing this month and reopening in Hamden in six weeks, and Chez Est, Nick's and the Sanctuary, all three in Hartford. Several clubs host gay nights, including the Art Bar in Stamford and, at one time, Bar in New Haven.
And from October 1996 to June 1997, Bartolomeo and Kevin Ford ran gay night on Tuesdays at Café Bash in New Haven, taking it away from Bar. Bartolomeo said he used the parties at Bash, which is now closed, as a “springboard” for Gotham Citi and didn't even move Tuesday nights to his own club until it had been open two months. And now that Wallingford's Choices is closing, Bartolomeo says he has lined up the popular “Girl Twirl” night for lesbians on Fridays.
Servicing the gay night life market and wanting nicer places to go himself, prompted Bartolomeo to open his own club. He says he personally financed the $300,000 in startup costs, largely expenses from redoing the electrical and plumbing systems, new HVAC and $40,000 for state-of-the-art light and sound.
Confidently smoking a cigarette while keeping a close eye on the needs of some regular customers at the bar, Bartolomeo says he spent and spends that kind of money on renovations and operating expenses because the club is a “reflection of me. I want it to be the best, whether it is advertising, liquor selection or service.”
Bartolomeo says Fridays and Saturdays are the busiest nights, attracting customers statewide and beyond. Tuesdays draw a respectable local crowd, last week about 150, although in 5,200 square feet it hardly looked busy. And for the other nights, his favorite being Wednesdays, he justifies staying open to create a presence and make sure customers have a place to go every night of the week.
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