Atlantic City Weekly

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Joe Friedman at the Foundation Room, upstairs at the House of Blues Atlantic City at Showboat.

ATLANTIC CITY — Reactions vary very little among those who enter the Atlantic City House of Blues’ Foundation Room for the first time. It would be a safe wager, in fact, to bet on a percentage somewhere in the 90s that the most spoken word upon initial entry is “wow.”

The layout and décor of the Foundation Room is stunning, and all of the worldwide artifacts authentic, but that’s really only a small part of what makes the room so special. There’s fine dining, quality entertainment and special events, ornate private rooms for unique social gatherings, and a membership offering like nothing else in the tri-state area.

Joe Friedman’s job, as business development manager for the Foundation Room and House of Blues, is not only to maintain a fresh feel for the room with lively dining and entertainment options, but to call attention to the benefits of its private membership plans. The room avails itself to non-members most of the time it’s open, but gives preferential treatment to members that extends well beyond what the room itself offers. 

Atlantic City Weekly spoke with Friedman about future plans for the Foundation Room and its benefits to members.

Can you talk a little about what’s new at the Foundation Room?
Sure. On Friday, June 3, we’re having an event dubbed “Suits, Scotch and Stogies” — it’s going to be the ultimate guys-night-out to complement the launch of Atlantic City’s first and only open-air cigar lounge; an incarnation of our terrace we are calling “Smoke on the Water.” On June 3rd we’re offering our members and their guests a scotch tasting, two cigars, a four-course dinner with live entertainment, and a master tailor that will measure the gentlemen up for custom-made suits. All for $99. Not to mention that local favorites, the Frankadelics, will be jamming until midnight in the lounge. We’ll also have masseurs from Qua Spa at Caesars in our private rooms giving complimentary massage.  For the scotch tasting, we’ll have a selection of fine cigars paired up with varietals of Glenmorangie Scotch. The terrace is decked out with new furniture, the sound system has been updated and we are ready to rock. It’s going to be the place to be on Friday nights.
As far as open-air lounges go, it will be the best in AC, hands down. Nobody can touch our offering.

The Foundation Room terrace is perched right over the Boardwalk and the view of the ocean and Steel Pier is phenomenal. We’ll do dinner and bottle service out there as well. And that is just our main terrace. Off of the dining room, there’s a private terrace, which is arguably the best table in Atlantic City. It’s a private terrace with only four to six tables out there at any given time, and you’re basically looking right over the Boardwalk with Revel to the left and Steel Pier on the right. It’s completely blocked off from the rest of the room, so we can have a raging party going on in the lounge and on the main terrace, while at the same time you can be enjoying a nice quiet dinner on the private terrace. It’s really spectacular.

How has the Friday Night Supper Club concept been working out since you launched that in March?
The Friday Night Supper Club has been an absolute success. Since we rolled it out, we’ve pretty much been packed every Friday.  We’ve actually pushing reservations back a week for non-members. In fact, there is waiting list for reservations for the next couple of weeks.  We originally started with dinner seatings at 6, 7, 8 and 9 [pm], but with demand being so great, we just added a 10 o’clock seating. At a price point of $50 you get a four-course meal and a bottle of wine for two, so it’s no wonder people are beating a path toward our door on Fridays. Don’t let the value-price fool you, either. The menu — a different one prepared monthly by chef Dave Suscavage — is top-notch and the same goes for the live entertainment our guests are treated to while they dine. The vibe is absolutely sublime. We’re still experimenting a little in an effort to perfect the offering and keep things fresh for our guests. We have a dozen or so members with standing reservations, so we always want the experience to be a little different from the last time they were with us. That’s why we change the menu every month and cycle fresh entertainment through the room. What is really going to hold them now through the summer, is our cigar bar.

As for Saturdays here, our private rooms are packed with members having dinner and drinks on the early side, then once 10 or 11 o’clock rolls around we’re jamming on nightlife which we affectionately refer to as, Ritual.  The best nights are when we have concerts at the House of Blues. There is always a pre-party in the Foundation Room with drinks and dancing, then after the show our guests return to a party in full swing with great DJ’s and strong drinks. Occasionally, the artist who performed that night will come to the Foundation Room and join the party. It’s an incredible scene, and again, something that just doesn’t happen anywhere else. I mean, where can you go see your favorite artist, and then literally have a drink with them after the show? The best experience I have had since being here is when Maroon 5 rocked the House of Blues on New Years Eve, and then hosted our after-party in the Foundation Room. Our guests were floored.

How much did driving new membership factor into creating open-to-the-public nights like the Friday Night Supper Club, and has it worked well to do so?
We took a look at our dining room revenue from last year on an average Friday Night when we didn’t have any programming. We had a large member base, but nowhere near what it is today. We thought “how can we put our heads together and figure out how to increase covers while exposing the room to a new, potential member base?” We wanted to offer a value to members and new guests, but we were not going to sacrifice quality. We wanted potential members coming in to experience the offering, and not just anyone walking the casino floor.  For instance, we’ll deny admission to guests who may have reservations, but not in conformance with our (business casual) dress code. If a person can’t dress to the level of quality the room deserves, they are free to run to their room for a quick change, or dine somewhere else. The Friday Night Supper Club, was pretty much [A.C. House of Blues nightlife operations manager] Cory Gallant’s brainchild, and has evolved into everything we have expected from it. Standing reservations are becoming the norm, and we’ve been able to sign up a ton of new members. By the end of the night we’ve got people saying, “You know what? This is a no-brainer.”

The two things I hear when guests visit for the first time is, one, I never knew this place existed before and, two, how come there aren’t a thousand people banging down the door to become members? The main reason this is so, I think, is because we do everything by word of mouth. There is no public advertisement on the membership. Every potential member must meet with me to discuss membership. We exist almost purely on referral. This is advantageous to us because we try to be somewhat selective of who our members are. I sit down and speak with all prospective members because I want to be sure they’re going to be a good addition to the member base. Once people come to the club for the first time, I tour them around and give them a well-rounded understanding of the membership. Nobody leaves unimpressed by the offering.

So are Thursday [Godspeed Industry Night], Friday and Saturday the three nights that the Foundation Room is open to members of the public?
Basically, the club itself is always accessible to the public. You can make a reservation to the Friday Night Supper Club, attend a wine-tasting, or any one of our great nightlife events without being as member, but members do get preferential treatment. A member of the public can also use one of the prayer [private] rooms, but there can be anywhere from a $500 to $1,500 minimum on those private rooms, depending on the night, whereas members are never forced to pay minimums. In that sense, yes, the Foundation Room is accessible to the public. The benefits and privileges, however, are not.