1999 - After Party at Garage

Dmitry Braude, owner:
"We became truly fashionable after we introduced the after-party system at "Garage". The place ran around the clock, while "Jazz Café" closed at five back then. In fact, as I recall, they wanted to close at four, because they claimed that only losers would hang around a club until morning. And we decided to experiment with "the party continues" and to put DJs on after five. And good DJs! It was a rather fresh and unexpected move. People realised they didn't have to head home, and even those who usually wrapped up at four learned to party until ten.
The very peak of the fun came at six in the morning. I later looked through the receipts - at that hour the bartenders managed to sell three cocktails a minute.
Night Flight closed at five. And the Swedes who managed that place started coming to our after-party. It was quite a respectable crowd, who always drank a lot and had noisy fun. After a while they began bringing along some girls for company. The ladies liked it here, and they took to coming to "Garage" to have breakfast and a drink after the workday. For a long time I made sure they were specifically spending their leisure time here, not working. But a couple of times over the course of our history the trade union got out of hand. There got to be too many of them, and drastic measures had to be taken. It's a matter of principle. There's no getting away from the professionals, but they should be a minority. Otherwise it kills the atmosphere in the club.
The very idea of a club implies a certain public, the presence of people of your own circle. And I always stood firm on that. When the loveliest lads from "B.B. King's" started coming to "Garage" in flannel shirts worn untucked, they were simply stopped at the door. This did not at all mean that the "B.B. King's" crowd was worse. It was just different. I always told them: "Guys, get changed. You'll be more comfortable yourselves. And I'll be glad to see you here." And people often took offence. I had to have such unpleasant conversations thousands of times, but what can you do?
And on principle we didn't let in the bratva. This question was extremely acute in the late 90s. Yes, of course, they were quite ready to leave a hundred dollars in the club, but at the same time they'd do about five hundred dollars' worth of damage. Even if it wasn't direct damage from a brawl, then it was simply moral harm. After all, it cost this crowd nothing to scatter fifty people with their boorish behaviour. So I had to talk to people personally, explain things to them. Several times we had to escort out people who, in some utterly incomprehensible way, still got into the club and tried to impose their own order. Now it seems like nonsense, but back then it was all deadly serious - to walk the bulls of a serious crew out the door.
So at that moment toughness was necessary. I remember that once we didn't let in some guy who turned out to be a friend of Mark Ames from Exile. And he wrote a rather angry note about it. And one day I run into Mark at "Garage". He was completely happy, sitting there, drinking, chatting with some girl. I walked up to him: "Mark, I want to say a couple of words to you about face control. Right now you seem pleased with everything. Around you are nice, happy people, and everyone is very glad to see one another. Well, that is face control. And now imagine that four guys with gold chains around their necks are standing in that corner, looking you over closely. You probably wouldn't be having so much fun then." And he agreed with me. And afterwards he wrote a huge article about "Garage" that turned out to be wildly complimentary. For Exile that's practically impossible. And after that the expats came pouring in to us."