February 2006
Continental Lounge Still Believes

Cincinnati has had its share of image makers. Some have tried to make the city in the image they saw, and some have been stapled to the word Cincinnati internationally forever.

The characters run from Springer to Leis, and Rose to Robertson. They have never let other people’s image of Cincinnati dictate what they see. To them, for right or wrong, the Queen City has been a city that can sometimes use a little change, a little more flavor, a little more spice.

It has been said that the Continental Lounge, a member’s only club in Covington, is a bad thing. From the same people who brought you Club Clau—who gave Cincinnati something to wait in line for every Saturday night for the first time in a generation, the new wave is attempting to create a tradition from the ground up, modeled after the Aristocratic ethic and tradition of the Cincinnati Club and the Queen City Club.

While it can easily be sloughed off as just another country club—of coarse, it would make it a rare country club located in the urban core—that recruits a younger clientele, it is at its root, another attempt by Scott Sheridan, and Joshua Hueser to stir Cincinnati up. They want to provide another form of entertainment, and they have the vision and foresight in Cincinnati to give it a try at a potentially high expense.

It is often hard to remember that growth is painful, and despite the nasty reputation that a club that is carried by an elite will have, it is actually good.

What is good about the Continental Lounge? Well, for a start, it has some of the areas young and old philanthropists paired up with some of the area’s most visionary, directly or indirectly. The result is fundraising in a larger-than-life way for local charities and non-profits to get with this group that would have not otherwise been connected.

The same kinds of charities and non-profits, perhaps new, artistic, creative and upstart—sort of like the gentlemen who once opened a little club in Over-the-Rhine and made it the talk of the Midwest for one crazy year in 2004.

However, the bottom line is these guys want to have fun. There are a few different people around Heuser and Sheridan this go around—after the two steered Club Clau and Purgatory—but those who stay close enough are the people who share the unique energy that makes people at the pushiest clubs from city to city that no one has the energy and raw fun that Sheridan, Heuser and their crew have. What is most important about that energy is that they still believe: They still believe in Cincinnati and that it deserves variety. For that, we thank them.

The Continental Lounge may not be for everyone. Big deal. The owners and purveyors of the Lounge care enough to give it a shot and not take into account that nobody thinks it can succeed. It may not be what Cincinnati or the area has in its mold, but the visionaries are the ones who make it happen. And there is everything right about that.

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