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| The Bearded Brothers' front windows; panels were painted in Dayglo, lit up by black lights. |
Thus, when a friend, Fred Awad, offered me work at the restaurant he was operating my coat-and-tie job was history. My coming aboard as a bartender/manager was actually part of a larger plan Fred and I had cooked up to convert what was then a typical blue collar neighborhood beer joint/eatery into the Fan District's most happening night club in Richmond, Virginia. It was located on the southeast corner of Allison St. and West Broad Street.
The restaurant belonged to Fred's parents. They wanted to retire. Toward that goal, they had turned it over to their sons, Fred and Howard. The brothers changed the name of the place from Marconi's to the Bearded Brothers.
Growing beards was easy. But as it happened, the Awad boys couldn’t agree on how to run the business, so the younger brother, Howard, left planning to pursue the quest of opening a place of his own.
In a series of conversations Fred and I had talked ourselves into believing the fun-loving baby boomers in the Fan District needed a place to enjoy cold beer, hot food, live music and a psychedelic light show. That, together with the edgy spectacle of go-go girls on stage -- dancing topless. At this time, such "dancing" was going on in Roanoke. But it had yet to make its way to Richmond.
And, speaking of booming babies, at this time my wife, Valerie, was six months pregnant. Fred’s wife, Mary Ann, was seven months along. So while Fred and I were brimming over with youthful confidence that the new scheme for the restaurant would pay off, with our responsibilities, it was under pressure to do so right away.
With the help of a few friends it took a couple of weeks to paint the walls of the interior flat black, build the stage for the dancers and assemble the light show apparatus. We also painted the front window panes that faced Broad Street in Dayglo colors illuminated by black lights. While I did most of the window painting, a handful of volunteers also painted a few of the panels.
Fred booked a couple of local rock ‘n’ roll bands. They performed maybe three or four nights a week, and that went over well. As we had imagined, the live music immediately brought in a fresh nighttime crowd. A four-man group calling itself Natural Wildlife became a regular attraction.
So with everything in place, it came time to hire the go-go dancers. A help-wanted sign went up in the restaurant. A few young women soon came in asking about the dancing job.
Fred took charge of auditioning the applicants in the restaurant's office in the basement. Eventually, two were settled upon. One of them had some professional go-go girl experience, the other was a rookie.
However, only the dancer who was new to the exhibitionism trade could be there for the first night, which we advertised in the two local daily newspapers. The ad art was my work; it featured a pen-and-ink rendered silhouette of a female dancer and the new Bearded Bros. logo I had designed. And, away we went.
By 8 p.m. the place was packed, wall-to-wall. We were selling beer like never before. The only problem was that our featured dancer, with her gaudy new sequined costume -- which included tasseled pasties to hide her nipples (as dictated by the Alcohol Beverage Control Board) -- was late.
After that night we never saw her again. The show went on as other women were hired, easily. None of them lasted long, but a few of them were pretty good dancers; one in particular but her name escapes me.
By 8 p.m. the place was packed, wall-to-wall. We were selling beer like never before. The only problem was that our featured dancer, with her gaudy new sequined costume -- which included tasseled pasties to hide her nipples (as dictated by the Alcohol Beverage Control Board) -- was late.
Scary late. She hadn’t called, either.
With the beer-drinking crowd clamoring for the promoted dancing on stage aspect of the show to get underway, a woman with a sculpted hairdo, wearing shades (at night), waved to get my attention. As the joint was noisy, I motioned to her to come around to the end of the bar I was stationed behind. In what was maybe a Queens accent, she asked something like, “Any chance you need another dancer?”
Trying to hide my pure glee, I called Fred over. She told us she had noticed the Bearded Bros. ad in a discarded newspaper on the counter of the Greyhound bus station’s coffee shop. She claimed she had been dancing in a club in Baltimore. She was chewing gum confidently.
With the beer-drinking crowd clamoring for the promoted dancing on stage aspect of the show to get underway, a woman with a sculpted hairdo, wearing shades (at night), waved to get my attention. As the joint was noisy, I motioned to her to come around to the end of the bar I was stationed behind. In what was maybe a Queens accent, she asked something like, “Any chance you need another dancer?”
Trying to hide my pure glee, I called Fred over. She told us she had noticed the Bearded Bros. ad in a discarded newspaper on the counter of the Greyhound bus station’s coffee shop. She claimed she had been dancing in a club in Baltimore. She was chewing gum confidently.
Fred promptly offered her $50 to alternate sets with the other dancer. Seeing that transaction play out immediately gave me new faith in the power of advertising.
The Greyhound Girl even had her own costume with her in her suitcase. Fred paid her in advance and suggested that since the other girl was running late, maybe she could go on, like, right away.
It all went over like gangbusters. Up on stage, with the lights and music, she danced like the pro she actually was. Natural Wildlife was cooking and the draft beer taps stayed open.
After the dancer’s first set was over, she put on her robe and found Fred. We were serving beer from behind the bar. She laughed good naturedly, “There ain’t no other girl, is there?”
Fred probably said, “Hey, we don’t know where she is.” If not, then I probably said it.
“OK, I’ll need another fifty bucks to go back up there,” is approximately what she said. ... with a professional tone.
Fred put the money in her hand without hesitation. She agreed to do two more 20-minute sets. Yes, a hundred bucks was a lot of money for about an hour's worth of work, in those days, but since we were selling beer like crazy there was clearly no use in quibbling.
It all went over like gangbusters. Up on stage, with the lights and music, she danced like the pro she actually was. Natural Wildlife was cooking and the draft beer taps stayed open.
After the dancer’s first set was over, she put on her robe and found Fred. We were serving beer from behind the bar. She laughed good naturedly, “There ain’t no other girl, is there?”
Fred probably said, “Hey, we don’t know where she is.” If not, then I probably said it.
“OK, I’ll need another fifty bucks to go back up there,” is approximately what she said. ... with a professional tone.
Fred put the money in her hand without hesitation. She agreed to do two more 20-minute sets. Yes, a hundred bucks was a lot of money for about an hour's worth of work, in those days, but since we were selling beer like crazy there was clearly no use in quibbling.
After that night we never saw her again. The show went on as other women were hired, easily. None of them lasted long, but a few of them were pretty good dancers; one in particular but her name escapes me.
It soon became my duty to paint the dancers with Dayglo paint. Don't remember who thought of than. Anyway, I painted vines curling around their arms and legs, stars and stripes on their torsos, etc. Yet, after three or four weeks of that schtick, it became apparent the regular customers didn't much care about the artsy aspects of topless dancing, such as they were. They preferred bare skin. So, the Laugh-In-styled body decorating stopped.
Although painting the dancers was a pleasant enough task, hanging out after work was the best perk of the Bearded Bros. job (which wasn't always paying me as much as I needed to make each week). Frequently, friends, some of them musicians, stayed around late, jamming, smoking pot and playing pinball games.
Although painting the dancers was a pleasant enough task, hanging out after work was the best perk of the Bearded Bros. job (which wasn't always paying me as much as I needed to make each week). Frequently, friends, some of them musicians, stayed around late, jamming, smoking pot and playing pinball games.
The most notable of the afterhours musicians who passed through was Bruce Springsteen, whose band occasionally played in Richmond then. He was a skinny, quiet guy who didn’t stand out as much then as he would later.
When my daughter was born in January the Bearded Bros. scene was lively. Then, as the weather warmed up, the crowds gradually began to thin out. Other clubs opened up offering live music, some of which were closer to VCU. Gradually, the restaurant began to drift back toward being pretty much what it had been before all the black paint.
The restaurant's daytime crowd of regulars from the neighborhood didn't always mix well with the hippies coming in at night for the music. Then the topless angle turned out to be mostly a fad that sort of clashed with both crowds. So it was discontinued. However, I don't remember any sort of incident prompting that decision.
In the late spring I had to look for a real job again. After short runs at a couple of forgettable jobs, I landed a sales position at WRNL AM/FM. Richmond Newspapers still owned the two radio stations then. Once again, I learned it paid to advertise. And, on that job I did my first professional writing, when I began penning commercials and dreaming up promotions for my advertising clients.
Eventually, Fred's mother took the restaurant back over. About a year later Howard Awad opened up Hababa's on the 900 block of W. Grace St., where he had a lot of fun making large money (1971-84) serving cold beer and playing canned music on his popular bar’s state-of-the-art stereo.
In the years to come, topless dancing morphed into a rather creepy form of entertainment aimed at an entirely different audience. A narrow audience. Truth be told, since the time of the Bearded Brothers I've never had any interest in the places that feature that form of entertainment.
Although I saved copies of the aforementioned newspaper ad, and the logo I did for the restaurant and Natural Wildlife, for their cards and handbills, etc., I haven't seen any of that stuff in a long time. The only remaining souvenirs from my initial stumble into show biz are a few black and white photographs, like the shot above of the club's distinctly 1969 front windows,.
When my daughter was born in January the Bearded Bros. scene was lively. Then, as the weather warmed up, the crowds gradually began to thin out. Other clubs opened up offering live music, some of which were closer to VCU. Gradually, the restaurant began to drift back toward being pretty much what it had been before all the black paint.
The restaurant's daytime crowd of regulars from the neighborhood didn't always mix well with the hippies coming in at night for the music. Then the topless angle turned out to be mostly a fad that sort of clashed with both crowds. So it was discontinued. However, I don't remember any sort of incident prompting that decision.
In the late spring I had to look for a real job again. After short runs at a couple of forgettable jobs, I landed a sales position at WRNL AM/FM. Richmond Newspapers still owned the two radio stations then. Once again, I learned it paid to advertise. And, on that job I did my first professional writing, when I began penning commercials and dreaming up promotions for my advertising clients.
Eventually, Fred's mother took the restaurant back over. About a year later Howard Awad opened up Hababa's on the 900 block of W. Grace St., where he had a lot of fun making large money (1971-84) serving cold beer and playing canned music on his popular bar’s state-of-the-art stereo.
In the years to come, topless dancing morphed into a rather creepy form of entertainment aimed at an entirely different audience. A narrow audience. Truth be told, since the time of the Bearded Brothers I've never had any interest in the places that feature that form of entertainment.
Although I saved copies of the aforementioned newspaper ad, and the logo I did for the restaurant and Natural Wildlife, for their cards and handbills, etc., I haven't seen any of that stuff in a long time. The only remaining souvenirs from my initial stumble into show biz are a few black and white photographs, like the shot above of the club's distinctly 1969 front windows,.
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