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Fun, fun, FUN
Ybor City's new nightclub FUN is the place for folks who can't stop dancing. Or for those who prefer to watch it. Or for those who choose to lounge in comfort and take in an elevated view of Ybor City.
By AMY ABBOTT
© St. Petersburg Times, published February 15, 2001
TAMPA -- The new FUN nightclub doesn't start hoppin' until late in the evening, 10:30 at the earliest.
But once the party starts rolling, it snowballs. This is the kind of place where bar-hoppers end their night on the dance floor.
If you go out only to people watch, this isn't the place for you. It's active here, and there is no standing room in the massive, 13,000-square-foot warehouse-style club, the site of some of the big celebrity bashes during Super Bowl week last month.
Every inch of the floor is for dancing, broken only by two black boxes on which people also dance and by a hydraulic platform raised 20 feet in the air, holding decorations proclaiming the week's party theme. During a recent beach week, for example, the platform held a surfing mannequin.
The downstairs is for the common folk.
Those who need a break from the sea of dancers can, for a $15 fee, move upstairs to the VIP area. The room wraps around the edges of the building like a balcony, overlooking the dance floor below. Televisions suspended from the ceiling line the room, showing Japanese-style animated cartoons and flashing graphics.
Two larger TVs also show a variety of scenes, though nothing that requires audio. It would be pointless to try to blast anything over the club's incredible sound system, the same kind used in the Ice Palace.
The second floor also holds the bouncer-protected Marvin Lounge. Glassed off from the rest of the VIP, it's much like being in an aquarium. But that's nothing new for some of FUN's frequent celebrity visitors, whom the club personnel like to keep hush-hush. Tiny candles twinkle in cobalt blue holders on free-standing glass shelves. Leather couches are set at angles forming yet more separate sections.
For the real high rollers, a private room set just above the dance floor and to the left of the stage is complete with sliding windows and a separate entrance.
The club knows how to use its balcony overlooking Seventh Avenue. Tables and chairs are out there for partygoers to lounge in and check out the scene below. Just one rule: Drinks stay inside. A glass slipping over the edge and onto someone's head would stop all the fun.
The fun theme is a constant at FUN, even in the bathrooms. Cameras link the sink areas of the men's and women's rooms so patrons can check out the other sex preening. That usually leads to people making faces and imitating each other and high-pitched squeals from the ladies' room.
Other forms of entertainment include stilt walkers, people stuffed in big, fuzzy Garfield-looking costumes and tightrope walkers. Surreal is the flavor of fun at FUN.
ON THE TOWN:
FUN, 1507 E Seventh Ave., Ybor City. Open 9 p.m.-3 a.m. Wed.-Sat. (813) 247-4225.
Also
Some other upscale Tampa nightclubs.
Rain: 302 S Nebraska Ave. (813) 229-7246
Eclectic new club at Channelside. Open courtyard and a smattering of palm trees allows partygoers to be comfortable inside and out.
Amphitheater: 1609 E Seventh Ave. (813) 248-2331
Massive nightclub features a rotating dance floor, nightly dance acts and cool, bouncy, inflated, yellow mushroomlike seats.
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