Las Vegas’ Mandalay Bay
From L.A. to Vegas to New York, Ivan Kane has reinvented nightlife with some help from the world’s most beautiful dancers.
“I’m not in competition with other nightclubs in Hollywood or New York,” Ivan Kane said just days before construction began on his first New York location. “There are a lot of great nightclubs out there, but they are four walls, lights, and sound. We’ve created a niche for us that is very unique and therein lies our success.”
For Ivan Kane’s Forty Deuce, which had burlesque clubs in Hollywood and Las Vegas’ Mandalay Bay, that niche generally involves live music, beautiful women, and a sexual energy you won’t find anywhere else.
But this is not your grandfather’s burlesque house. Kane is all too familiar with those rundown speakeasies, having visited his fair share cutting school as a New York youth to hang out in Times Square (the name Forty Deuce is an homage to the square’s 42nd street).
Kane, along with his muse, wife, and former burlesque dancer Champagne Suzy, has instead established some of the country’s trendiest clubs; clubs built around spectacle and unmatched ambiance. “I want people to know that if Ivan Kane’s name is in front of a nightclub, they’re going to get a complete sensory experience,” says Kane.
Nowadays the show by Forty Deuce is only found at Ivan Kane’s Café Was. This is Ivan’s new venue in the center of Hollywood, with live music, of course the bar and a bohemian atmosphere not found anywhere else.
Ivan has the reputation for creating some of the best burlesque shows, in fact reviving the genre. Ivan’s Forty Deuce was even featured on the television, at a Bravo reality series as well as the BBC. Following this fame, the big guns from Las Vegas came knocking at the door and this is how the show was presented at the the Mandalay Bay.
So if you come by Hollywood, make sure to stop at the Café Was.
