Oct. 14, 1977 Nightlife/Cover Story with Barbara Snyder: Mulligan's on Hertel Avenue
These
days it’s hard to fully appreciate what a phenomenon Mulligan’s on
Café Society
By Barbara Snyder
Mike Militello doesn’t manage his
nightclub, he merchandises it, like a fine department store.
Armed with ideas from the windows of
And like the fashion industry he
emulates, Mulligan’s creed is change, creativity, movement.
Mulligan’s doesn’t just drift into
seasons, for example. It “presents” them.
“Mulligan’s Presents Spring” – so the
advertisement goes – and sure enough, live plants spring up around the bar and café,
linens are changed to brighter colors, the outdoor café is opened and the
artwork on the walls rotated.
Or take this Fall’s campaign: “Mulligan’s,
the Greatest Names in Town.” For that one, Mike created events, like the gala
anniversary party and the Superstar Benefit where ordinary folk could rub
elbows with the likes of O. J. Simpson, Elliot Gould, starlet Nichole Brown,
conductor Michael Tilson Thomas, TV star John Schuck and the Bills’ Reggie
McKenzie.
It is by a kind of unspoken, sometimes
begrudging consent that Mulligan’s is perceived as
“What we are doing is creating the café
society,” said Mike, leaning back, sipping an iced tea in the windowed office
above the nightclub. Surrounding him is the new artwork waiting to be hung on
the café’s walls. On his desk is a stack of graphic arts, architectural and
fashion magazines. On the top is Cosmopolitan.
There is “movement” within that
society, Mike added.
Although some would say that “movement”
is like a giant cattle call, Mike maintains he’s talking about the café society
as a well-orchestrated ballet.
The show begins at lunch, with the 45-
to 60-year-old set predominating. Dinner brings in a younger set, around 30,
interested in French food served in a quiet setting.
Then, Mike noted, around 11 p.m. the
diners thin out, the condiments are whisked off the tables, the lights dimmed
and the music raised to make room for the café crowd.
Then the cruising begins. Mulligan’s
was built for movement, for the traveler who makes the circuit from the bar to
the café to the terrace to the nightclub.
Around and around go the movie star,
the football player, the college girl, the receptionist, as well as the country
clubber tired of talk of golf, the stock market and real estate.
One of the greatest lures of the
place, Mike acknowledged, is the people who go there. “Everyone has been here
that has been through town,” he said. “You never know who you are going to
meet.”
Some people only make it once around the bar, get tired and go home. Others “get lucky,” as Mike so delicately phrases it, and then the fun begins.
* * * * *
By Dale Anderson
For the average male entering Mulligan’s
Café, the basic consideration boils down to striking the right note of suavity.
Like the brass in the chandeliers and the burnished mahogany in the ceiling,
the atmosphere invites polish.
Say, for instance, it’s Superstar
Night and O. J. Simpson happens to be broken-field running in the vicinity. Do
you grab him and ask for an autograph? Of course not. Etiquette and good sense
unanimously dictate that a simple blasé smile will suffice.
Those big-league manners also come in
handy on those nights when there aren’t any celebrities to rub shoulders with.
You never know who will show up. As a result, even the rookies are obliged to
look sharp. Mulligan’s no longer forbids jeans and persons under 21 because the
prevailing ambiance does the job instead.
Nevertheless, the clientele covers
quite a spectrum. Three fortyish General Electric salesmen from
The Mulligan’s philosophy on music is
a sort of seamless rising tide of familiarity. New deejay Nancy Miller, who
does Sundays on WYSL, is still learning that technique in the Café. But back in
the Night Club, there’s a home-grown master of the art.
He’s Keith Perla, a pre-law student at
Buffalo State College who used to deejay at parties with a portable PA. This is
his first disco job. His specialty is matching rhythms from one record to
another and he does it without benefit of variable-speed turntables.
Perla, who bills himself as “the King
of Funk,” frequently runs out of the booth to dance too. Though he appreciates
an esoteric and exciting disc, he defers to the dynamics of the room. Noting
that a lot of women are dancing, he’ll elect for something a lot of women would
like. Something they would know. Something like K. C. & the Sunshine Band’s
“Keep It Coming Love.”
A lot of things about Mulligan’s are
intended to please the ladies. The dressy surroundings encourage the feminine
sense of glamour. The 800-person capacity allows plenty of room to flash. And,
as with the superstars, sufficient decorum exists to insure against being
rudely accosted. As Anthony Baynes, the night maitre d’ notes: “With a date,
you can come here and you don’t have to worry about anything.”
Aside from celebrity-spotting and
genteel girl-watching, Mulligan’s offers a generous helping of other delights
for the average male.
A dinner order is likely to summon the
work of Vincent, a French chef of international renown. For the sum of $1.50
for a mixed drink, one can bear witness to the lightning hands of Danny Vecere
behind the Night Club’s bar.
And although no Sabres, Bills or
Braves may be present, general manager Dale Stefano’s efforts to make athletes
welcome often attracts other sportsmen. This particular Wednesday, most of the
UB football team is on hand.
And then, of course, there are Mike Militello’s friends, hundreds of them, a great diversity of prime movers. The
evening includes hellos from the owner of Foit’s seafood restaurants and from
Richie Alberts, the head man at Mickey Rats in
It adds up to a cross between Toots
Shor’s in New York City and the crowded spots along Elmwood Avenue, a mixture
of posh and populist that can be gauged as dependably as the barometric
pressure.
Around midnight, Militello surveys the Café and takes a reading. His conclusion: This crowd must be new to the place. They haven’t settled into the standard traffic patterns around the big oval bar. Next time they come in, he predicts, they’ll probably get it right. The key to urbanity at Mulligan’s, it turns out, is to do what the regulars do. For starters, try a simple blasé smile.
* * * * *
By Barbara Snyder
Wednesday morning Marsha Herb awakens,
stretches, and the first thing that pops into her head: Mulligan’s tonight.
Wednesday night is rock and roll night
at Mulligan’s, an excellent middle-of-the-week time for Marsha to put three
days of office work behind her for the night, to check out what’s happening.
For Marsha, the weekend begins on
Wednesday night.
Before the 20-year-old secretary is
out the door of her parents’
At work she phones her girlfriend.
Yes, she’s going to Mulligan’s too. “Meet you at 10 p.m.,” they agree.
At 10:15 p.m., Marsha walks through
Mulligan’s awning entrance head-on into scores of other fashionable young women
who are doing the same thing she is: Forgetting work, donning their finest
outfits and appearing at Buffalo’s haut monde bistro to parade, drink, dance,
mingle, be seen – and maybe, just maybe, meet a man.
“Impress other people – that’s
Mulligan’s. People who come here don’t come here to get drunk. Everybody here
has on their finest. Everybody here has a dream. I think everyone wants to
become the person everybody else wants. When I walk down the aisle, I’m
thinking, ‘How many guys are looking at me?’ The guys are thinking, ‘Should I
tell her I have a ’65 Impala or a ’77 Corvette?’” – Christine Biela, 19,
executive secretary, ad agency.
Marsha is one step ahead of many of
the other stylish women who begin pouring into this Vanity Fair about 10 p.m. and
become almost indistinguishable good-lookers by midnight, when the place starts
to rock.
She’s a local star, of sorts.
She’s the talented dancer who won the
local competition sponsored by Paramount Pictures and Harvey & Corky. It
meant a trip to
So Marsha is “known” – by owner Mike
Militello, the bouncers, the bartenders – a valuable commodity at Mulligan’s, a
bar that for some can be cold and standoffish.
Mulligan’s is a very cliquey bar.
People are hard to get to know. The women are into the cosmopolitan look. The
men are into getting something from you, not into your head. – Denise Carella,
22,
Marsha surveys the café’s bar. The
usual – people waiting, waiting to mingle, starting to chat, beginning to move
their bodies to the music.
She and her girlfriend wait a few
minutes to see if somebody will buy them a drink. No one does, so they buy
their own.
A group of guys recognize her. “Hey, I
thought you would be in
And what a dancer she is. “As soon as
I walk into the club, my whole inner self opens up,” she confides.
Beginning the Mulligan’s once-around
the café-bar-nightclub, she bumps into a bouncer she knows, then an
Marsha gets introduced to some new
people, the kind of people she comes to Mulligan’s to meet. “The people here
have some kind of finesse, some character,” she maintains.
This isn’t a push-shove bar. This
place attracts me week after week. It’s one of the finest nightclubs in any
city in the
The group drinks, and as it drinks it
collectively begins to feel good – dancing, drinking, talking, laughing – and then
Marsha gets into a conversation with one particular guy.
“I work in advertising,” this
six-foot-two, dark-haired, mustachioed man, dressed in a three-piece
cream-colored suit, tells her.
They chat, talking about clothes, music,
travel. “I’ve been to
Most of the time Marsha has to flatly
refuse the men who ask her to come home with them. “So, where does that put
you?” she sighs.
Not this man, though. He asks for her
phone number. “Could I give you a call sometime?” he asks. “What time do you
get home from work?”
Marsha reaches for a cocktail napkin,
pulls a pen from her purse and writes down her number.
The next day she calls her girlfriend
at work. “I met the most gorgeous man at Mulligan’s last night,” she says. “I
hope he calls.”
The week goes by, but he never calls.
Marsha doesn’t lose any sleep over it
though. Because there’s always next Wednesday night, at Mulligan’s.
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