Press

New Club, New Opportunity

The jiggling, thong-clad dancers are gone, but the entertainment is still plenty raw at 4910 Brook Road.

Nearly six months after the Richmond area's most notorious adult night club abruptly shut its doors and skipped town, the stage at the former Gold City Showgirls is again jumping - now with live jazz.

It's been a rocky start at the new Upper East Side jazz club, but residents of the north side Henrico County neighborhood where Gold City tried to establish itself see hope in the rebirth.

Samson and Keen Trinh saw an opportunity when the club closed.

Their parents own the building where the adult club set up shop and spent two years skirting the law.

The Trinh brothers, age 20 and 22, respectively, were among the first through the doors after the strip club's operators cleared out overnight on July 6, exactly two years from the day Gold City opened to public protest and police action.

"It was a huge mess," Keen said. "It was all black and the walls were purple. There was uncooked food laying out in the kitchen, chicken bones everywhere. And you'd find a lot of shoes that the girls were wearing - and lingerie.

"Henrico County Health [Department] wouldn't let us through the doors for a couple of days," he said.

"It made you want to throw up," Samson said.

The brothers were among the first to see potential for the vacant building, even when their parents, Vi and Phoenix Trinh, were ready to shut off the lights and sell the building.

Cleanup took five months, and when the Trinhs opened the doors, it was under a somewhat directionally confusing name - Upper East Side, which is just north of Richmond.

But there's a parallel in the nightclub's reopening and overall changes along Brook Road, said Bo Vidler, owner of Vidler's Automotive and president of the recently formed Brook Road Business Association, which represents about 20 of the 90 or more businesses between Parham Road and Azalea Avenue.

"You can see little improvements on Brook Road," Vidler said. "It's all in the starting stages."

After 30 years of decline, Brook Road, which is among Henrico's older commercial districts, still faces an uphill climb.

"Gold City - that's what got all this started," said Vidler, whose shop is next door to the former strip club. "But people finally just woke up" when the club opened on Dec. 11.

"For years, you work in your business ... and you're really blind to what's around you until something like Gold City happens."

In addition to the business association, Vidler said, residents in the area behind the club continue their active role in neighborhood revitalization. And the county's talk of commitment to revitalization has at least a rubber stamp from the Board of Supervisors.

The county's commitment is real, said Henrico Planning Director John Marlles, whose office took much of the heat during the Gold City debacle. County officials were caught off guard when the club applied for its permits and remained so until neighbors pitched their fit just weeks before the club opened.

"We're not there yet, but we've certainly turned the corner," Marlles said. "People are learning to work together. There are a lot of challenges ... I think we're doing what we can do to improve the corridor.

"The fact that we're seeing new business development there is something that I'm very excited about," Marlles said. "I think it's showing that Brook Road is a place where businesses are interested in locating."

A study of Brook Road commissioned by the county is inspiring the development of new county building guidelines that new construction will have to follow.

So far, the county has failed to secure federal funding for improvements, but plans are in the works to reapply.

And several zoning cases, either recently approved or currently moving through the channels, also add promise.

Most of these new projects are centered on the Brook Run Shopping Center at the south end of the corridor, but a few - including a new veterinary clinic - have crept into the north end closer to the old Gold City building.

It's been a long road getting to this point, Marlles said. "Starting with something that was a very negative experience with Gold City, I think we're now turning the corner. That Gold City is no longer in there and a legitimate business is ... is a wonderful accomplishment."

Plenty remains to be done, Marlles said.

Remaining issues include the Hanover Associates trailer park that is within easy walking distance of Gold City's old home. The county is suing to close or restrict the park, which is home to 65 trailers. That's 45 more than were approved by the county in 1948. So far, legal efforts have been unsuccessful.

And the road is maintained by the Virginia Department of Transportation, which adds additional layers of complexity to any improvement plans.

The new jazz club has struggled to overcome Gold City's reputation - the building's notoriety stretches back to 1976 when the popular Celebrity Room pizza parlor burned under mysterious circumstances.

"We have had those cliches where people come in here and see a bunch of Chinese people," Samson said. They look confused, he said, that there's no moo goo gai pan on the menu and leave.

"And I remember one guy came in and said, 'So, do you have any girls in here?' He left," Samson said. "We want people to look past the stereotypes."

Vidler said escaping stereotypes could take time - for all of Brook Road.

"A lot of people want an overnight fix," he said, somewhat frustrated himself that some area business owners were slow to see the value of the business association.

"I fix cars," Vidler said. "I don't know how to change Brook Road, and that's why you need a group of people to work together for a common cause."

The common cause remains putting pressure on the county and the Virginia Department of Transportation, which maintains Brook Road, and doing it with patience and a goal of achieving real results.

"If you start throwing 10,000 problems at VDOT and the county, you aren't going to get anything," Vidler said. "You've got to pick a few little things at a time."

Time is a luxury that Samson and Keen don't have. Running a restaurant is no picnic, and it's fly or fall.

"We're confident, but we know that it's risky," said Samson, who is juggling his club responsibilities against his studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, where he is a music major (he also plays clarinet and saxophone in Upper East Side's house band).

Keen takes inspiration from his father and mother, whose Phoenix Garden restaurant, once in the same building as Gold City and now Upper East Side, thrived despite naysayers' predictions.

"That's what they said when they opened their Chinese restaurant: 'You won't last two months,'*" Keen said. "We were here for 15 years."