Dancing to Different Tunes

Since opening on New Year's Eve, Club Soho attracts people in the thousands by showcasing diverse music, including salsa and house

By NYRIE KARKAZIAN

It’s not often you get into two clubs for the price of one.

But that’s exactly what Club Soho and the Bedroom offer.

Club Soho, which shares a corner with the Warnors Theatre and the Star Palace, opened on New Year’s Eve and is attracting about 1,000 to 1,500 people from all over the Fresno area every weekend, general manager Jeremy Dobbins said.

Dobbins, who books events and concerts for both Soho and the Warnors Theatre, said he is trying to reach out to all kinds of people by promoting the club.

“Bottom line, we try to cater to a variety of people,” Dobbins said. “We're across the border.”

Every Friday, the bar and grill turns into a sensual salsa and merengue nightclub. Free salsa lessons are offered from 8:45 p.m. to 10 p.m. and the session features a live salsa band and percussion players.

“The lights, sounds and crowds vary depending on what night it is,” corporate developer Richard Caglia said.

Saturday night is promo A-list night with house music. The club is also open Tuesdays through Saturdays at 11 a.m. for lunch and 5 p.m. for dinner and happy hour.

The club, with a minimum age of 21, also promotes a variety of different shows, including jazz, blues and comedy.

Connected to the club by a flight of stairs is The Bedroom, an 18-and-over nightclub on the second floor.

The Bedroom takes up half the upstairs portion of Soho and is separatedby a bright orange fence in the middle of the room.

The Bedroom consists of a large dance floor, surrounded by a balcony for dancing. On the other side of the room are two beds, one covered with a tree design and the other covered in flannel.

People who enter in the Soho side are able to go about freely in the club with a black light stamp of the Soho emblem, but those under 21 are monitored so they stay on the Bedroom side.

“It was odd that the two clubs were connected and separated only by the orange fence,” said 22-year-old Maria Sheakalee. “It wasn’t my kind of crowd, but the overall atmosphere is good for drinking and dancing the night away.”

The Caglia family bought the club area, along with the Star Palace and the Warnors Theatre, in the 1970s from the Warner Co. and changed the “e” in Warners to an “o.” Richard Caglia’s grandfather, Frank, had fallen in love with the Robert Morton organ inside the theater and decided to buy it when he heard the news that the building was going to be torn down.

“I love the facility, it's classic and there is nothing like it,” said Dobbins of the old-fashioned building built in 1928. “They don’t make them like this anymore.”