Rum Bay closes, will reopen as new nightclub

Rum Bay, the bar complex that changed the face of downtown nightlife, is history.

The sprawling club at 20 N. Tejon St, has closed for a multi-million-dollar renovation and will reopen under another name with another theme in late August.

Owners Kathy and Sam Guadagnoli won’t say what they’ll call it, but they say they’re ripping out the club’s tropical theme.

“That’s over with,” Kathy Guadagnoli said. “It’s going to be very elegant, very classy, very upscale.”

Before Rum Bay opened in 1999, the hottest nightspot on Tejon Street was the yuppie martini bar The Ritz.

At 12,950-square-feet, the two-story Rum Bay dwarfed The Ritz and every other downtown watering hole and introduced the idea of several clubs in one.

There was an ice bar, karaoke room, hip hop DJs, a jazz bar, even the “world’s smallest bar” as well as huge dance floor. The downtown nightlife scene exploded, drawing a younger crowd from Fort Carson and throughout the region. And it set the stage for other clubs that would soon follow.

Together, these new clubs filled Tejon Street with people until long after midnight on weekends and, because accidents, bar fights and street brawls became increasingly common, police were forced to concentrate more officers in the area.  

News of Rum Bay’s demise came as a surprise even to employees and management.

Rum Bay manager Chuck Schafer said he was on the phone with Sam Guadagnoli last week, and he asked how business was doing.

“I said: ‘Fine. We’re packed. There’s a line out the door. It’s a great night. Everybody’s happy,’ ” Schafer said. “And he said: ‘Great, let’s shut her down after tonight.’ I thought: ‘I must have a bad connection.’ ”

But he says it all made sense when they explained their thinking: They didn’t want to wait until the club faded and started to feel like stale beer. They wanted to re-invent Rum Bay while it was still drawing crowds.

That re-invention seemed to be in high gear on Thursday afternoon as echoes of power saws and hammers filled the gutted nightclub. Most of the second floor had been cut off to create a two-story atrium over the dance floor. Schafer pointed to the raw boards and dangling wires and described a state-of-the-art light truss with a built-in fog machine, a sound system that would blow away any other in the region and four separate DJ stations.

“It’s going to be unbelievable,” he said.

 In the past two years, the Guadagnolis have been on a tear, building new clubs and renovating old ones. They moved their oldest club, Cowboys, from Rustic Hills to  downtown, built another Cowboys at Palmer Park and Powers Boulevard.

Then they also opened a bowling alley, Downtown Lanes, over the downtown Cowboys. It was followed by a new club, Gasoline Alley, just north of the Rum Bay complex. They also renovated the Red Martini Bar and Blondie's.

But it hasn’t all been expansion and renovation for the Guadagnolis. Downtown clubs, including several of theirs, have experienced numerous disturbances requiring police intervention. In March, a woman customer at Cowboys accused a bouncer of shoving her against a wall. The allegation has prompted the liquor board to review the club’s license.

A hearing is scheduled for Aug. 20.

Sam Guadagnoli wouldn’t comment on the dispute, other than saying: “They’re not going to shut us down.”