The thrift store furniture and cans of beer served out of coolers provided the perfect setting for the mix of acid jazz and trip-hop.įate In 1997 it relocated down the street to another basement lair. Now, Buckhead Atlanta boutiques.Įntered through an unmarked side door of a seedy hotel, the original MJQ was an underground Euro lounge dropped in the middle of Ponce. After an altercation involving a posse belonging to the NFL’s Ray Lewis left two stiffs on the sidewalk in 2000, the powers that be tightened the screws and brought the party to a close.įate Then, clubs with names like Uranus. closings.īy day the moneyed heart of Atlanta, by night its stoked loins.
Home to Charlie Brown’s Cabaret and a disco floor that drew gay and straight revelers, Backstreet was the go-to place to party after other clubs closed.įate It stopped rainin’ men in 2004 after a city ordinance mandated 3 a.m. One of the largest gay bars in the Southeast, this two-story Midtown club was among the few Atlanta nightspots with a 24/7 liquor license. Of those years, none, arguably, was better than 1996, when you could conceivably hit all of these places in one glorious night.įilling the shoes of the Limelight-the disco of “Disco Kroger” fame-was a tall order, but Rupert’s kept Buckhead dancing thanks to its 12-piece house band, the self-proclaimed “fabulous” Rupert’s Orchestra, which pumped out vanilla covers of Top 40 hits.įate The club closed by the late 1990s, but you can still book the band for your next soiree.
Our nightlife hit an ecstatic peak in the 1990s, a decade lubricated by the free-flowing cash of the dot-com boom, the flash of the burgeoning hip-hop scene, and the youthful exuberance of the Olympics.