Orlando – For the first time in a while, International Drive will boast a gay bar.
Revere, a new LGBT club at The M Resort, will host its grand opening Dec. 4. The club’s soft opening was Nov. 13-15, and continues through the last two weekends in November.
During the soft opening, Revere is open 8 p.m. – 2 a.m. Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. After the grand opening, the club’s hours will be 11 a.m. – 2 a.m. seven days a week. It’s for ages 21 and up.
Barry Miller, an Orlando attorney who is providing legal counsel to Revere’s owner, Micah Bass, says Revere is the only LGBT club in the tourist district.
“Micah’s been looking for the right property to do something like this for a few years,” Miller says. “He found this property right in the heart of the tourist district and thought there was a need for an LGBT club down there.”
Miller notes that there are 62 million tourists who visit Orlando each year, and if 10 percent of them are LGBT, that’s 6.2 million potential customers for Revere. He says they’re working with Visit Florida to market the club and letting concierges know Revere exists. They’ll also market through social media, and make sure that they’re listed in LGBT travel guides.
Miller says they also expect Revere to be a hot spot for locals, especially those who work in Orlando’s huge tourist industry.
“There’s a lot of people who live in the Metro West area, Kissimmee area, and [Revere is] going to attract a lot of people in the service industry who work at Disney, Universal and the hotels who don’t want to go downtown,” Miller says. “They’ll have a place closer to home.”
Bass, who says he’s been friendly with and worked with members of the LGBT community through his entire career, says it took just a few months to renovate and ready the club for customers. It used to be a cafeteria-style restaurant, but now the 7,500 square foot space features a 2,500 square foot dance floor, a VIP room with male dancers and showers, a purple theatre room with plans for a stage that will hold drag performers and a walk-out to a pool bar and beach area, with a tiki bar in the works.
DJ Wayne is their resident DJ, Bass says, for the soft opening and grand opening weekends, he’s bringing in guest DJs and “entertainment Orlando has not seen yet,” but would not give specifics because “I want everybody to be surprised.”
Miller says the soft opening went well. They put out a suggestion box and are looking through the ideas now.
“Someone had a great suggestion of instead of doing just karaoke, doing a Broadway karaoke night, so I think we’re going to do that,” he says.
There’s no cover for the soft opening and for events beyond that, Bass says it’s up to Revere’s entertainment director. The club provides valet parking and Bass strongly recommends patrons coming from the north use the Universal exit, which says “takes less than five minutes” to get from I-4 to the club, “otherwise, it takes a while to get through the tourist traffic.”
Photos by Danny Garcia.
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