|
Local NJ newspaper article about Pacha
|
View this Thread in Original format
| LuNaSeA |
http://northjersey.com/page.php?qst...UVFeXk3MDU0MjYx
and for the lazy bastards that reside within and around us:
Pacha: A home for Giants and giants
The Record
Monday, January 8, 2007
By MIKE KERWICK
STAFF WRITER
DANIELLE P. RICHARDS / THE RECORD
Eddie Dean, who has transformed the former Sound Factory into Pacha, a trendy nightclub on the Westside.
The owner of the poshest addition to Manhattan's club scene is wearing a gray camouflage shirt, light blue jeans and a pair of white Reeboks. If he didn't own the place, you wonder, would he make it past the bouncer at the door?
Eddie Dean sits on one of his couches in the VVIP section - that's for Very, Very Important People - and admits this place isn't exactly his style.
"I never really went out to clubs in New York," confesses Dean, a 42-year-old River Vale resident. "It just wasn't me. Even today, I prefer to have a cold beer in a local pub than at a big nightclub."
Dean just happens to have his hands on Pacha, a four-story, 30,000-square-foot venue that Maxim recently listed among the 10 hottest megaclubs in America. It has become a home for Giants (Osi Umenyiora) and giants (Howard Stern, Diddy, Alex Rodriguez).
"We're the club of choice," Dean says. "Guys who wouldn't return our call last year, we're not returning their calls this year."
So how did Dean, a kid from Caldwell who was once one of the best high school field goal kickers in New Jersey, grow up to open this ode to excess? How did Dean, a sports savant who knows uniform numbers better than the professional athletes who wear them, come to own a place where some of the best disc jockeys on the planet spin on Saturday nights?
Click Here
"The thing about Eddie is he will work very, very hard," says Pat Sempier, Dean's kicking coach at Caldwell High School. "And that's what happened."
It began in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn, when Dean turned 24. He had been working in real estate, bartending on the side, and decided to take the biggest risk of his life.
He bought a neighborhood bar.
"I was the bartender, the bouncer, the DJ, the busboy, the bookkeeper," Dean says. "I really ran everything. I did it all by myself. I was young and ambitious. I knew no other way."
Before long, he owned three bars in Brooklyn. Soon he left Brooklyn to take on Manhattan. Eventually he was having lunch at a table that overlooked the Mediterranean, trying to convince Danny Whittle and the powers that be at Pacha's flagship location on the island of Ibiza that the group should plant a franchise in New York City.
"The way I see it is New York is the birthplace of disco," Whittle, Pacha's brand director, wrote in an e-mail. "It has always had an amazing nightlife culture, and I, for one, can't imagine going to New York and not [being] able to go to a nightclub."
The result of that meeting is this converted warehouse at 46th Street and 12th Avenue. A white awning bearing Pacha's two-cherries logo hangs from the front of the building. Pigeons cluster along 46th, hoping for scraps to fall off the delivery trucks leaving a bagel-manufacturing plant across the street.
On a weekend night, the street looks different. Darker, sure, and maybe fewer pigeons, but it's also crowded with people who want to dance or de-stress from the previous week.
"Listen, the day of abusing people at the door is sort of over," Dean says. "A club like this, we're very welcoming, unless you see people are rambunctious. If you don't know how to act walking up to a club, or [if you are] on line being really rambunctious, that will of course work against you."
"He would probably turn me away," joked Sempier, Dean's former kicking coach. "He'd say, 'No senior citizens.'Ÿ"
According to Dean, Pacha's New York location did not turn a profit in 2006, its first full year of operation. When the place opened in December 2005, many of the top DJs in the world were under exclusive contracts. Dean has been prying them away from other places, landing talent that makes a difference in what Dean calls an "event-driven business."
"There are just so many options for people, that to fill a big club on a regular basis is very difficult, so you need to have star power," Dean says. "You need the Erick Morillos, the Danny Tenaglias and Jonathan Peters."
The club also ran into trouble after the first night, when a photograph of Robert Iler (Tony Soprano's son on "The Soprano"s) holding a bottle of vodka landed on the cover of the New York Post. Iler was not 21.
Police showed up for the official opening two nights later. Dean says they made management turn on all the lights and cut the music for over an hour.
"I went over for the opening last year," Whittle wrote in an e-mail, "and although we had some teething problems with the police on the second night, I saw Eddie staying totally calm, and in his words he said, 'Sometimes you just have to take it on the chin and come back stronger.' At no point did he lose his cool and direction, and he has done exactly what he said that night."
Dean expects revenue to increase by 30 percent during the first three months of 2007 compared with the first three months of 2006. He is getting good at this, even if sometimes he needs a break from it.
"Come here on a Friday night," Dean says, "there's a chance I won't be here. I'll be down at the bar on the corner having a pint."
E-mail: [email protected]
* * *
Eddie Dean
Age: 42.
Born: Montclair.
Lives: River Vale.
High School: Caldwell.
College: University of Delaware.
Random facts: Was named to the 1981 All-Herald News football team as a kicker ... Spent two years playing football for Tubby Raymond at the University of Delaware ... Owned his first bar, Faces, in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn in 1988 ... Could open Pacha franchises in Miami and Las Vegas by the end of this year.
* * *
Pacha New York
Opened: December 2005.
Location: 618 W. 46th St., Manhattan.
Info: 212-209-7500; pachanyc.com.
Celebrities who've been to Pacha: Alex Rodriguez, Busta Rhymes, Carmelo Anthony, Howard Stern, Jamie-Lynn Sigler, Kristin Cavallari, Moby, Nelly Furtado, Nick Lachey, Diddy and Steve Nash.
DJs who spin at Pacha: Boris, Jonathan Peters, Erick Morillo (co-owner of Pacha).
Size: Four stories, 30,000 square feet.
Admission: Depends on the night, but you'll probably pay somewhere around $25 to get in the door.
lol. found the "who spins at pacha" slightly amusing. otherwise, nice article, now we can expect even more guidos/ettes to infest the place (Y). |
|
|
| SidMl |
After being there enough, I would never call PachaNYC "posh" or "trendy". I find it kind of "divey" and that's the way I like it.
It has turned out to be a place where people can go out and have a good time without any pretense.
And btw the back right speakers are where I take my naps. If you dare look in that direction, it's a fight waiting to happen. |
|
|
| chi6me8ra |
| ^^^I agree, Pacha doesn't give me the posh or trendy vibe. It's definitely a nice club though :D |
|
|
| Groundhog Boy |
| Nice to see that they went out of their way to repeatedly mention how he doesn't even like the crowd/dynamic/atmosphere of his own club. |
|
|
| dcctnycprincess |
| decent article, but it seems like he's more focused on "star" power than on the music. nothing really groundbreaking at pacha...just the same old megaclub you see in other cities IMO. |
|
|
| PvDoBseSSioN |
| quote: | Originally posted by Groundhog Boy
Nice to see that they went out of their way to repeatedly mention how he doesn't even like the crowd/dynamic/atmosphere of his own club. |
well he'd be lying if he said otherwise, i don't like pacha NYC one bit |
|
|
| intelligent77 |
| i think its extremely expensive |
|
|
| emc^2 |
| quote: | Originally posted by PvDoBseSSioN
well he'd be lying if he said otherwise, i don't like pacha NYC one bit |
while it definitely registers very high on a douchemeter, on Feb 2nd I am ignoring all readings and going in, straight into the belly of the beast. :p |
|
|
|
|
