Same Nightclub
Same Nightclub is a new club located in the space where previous bars Cobra and West used to be. Boasting bottle service and DJ beats, Same is open Thursdays to Saturdays for your clubbing pleasures.
I visited the club late one Friday night (cover is $10-20 depending on the night). Outside, Same uses the space between the two buildings as a patio.
Though it's on the narrow side and there's no seating, it's nice that there's an outdoor area to drink that's far enough from King Street that you don't see any pedestrians but close enough that you still can hear the incessant chiming of the streetcar and passengers' weary moaning.
The indoor portion of Same is located down a flight of stairs. After a small room housing the ATM, the space opens up to a long rectangular room. Bars are on either end, with bottle service booths in the middle and around the sides.
There's a room on one side, completely decorated in black and white chevron, with a wall-mounted creepy mask not unlike the face in the book featured in both The Care Bear Movie and my nightmares for years to come after watching. The DJ booth sits on the other side of the space, opposite the nightmare mask.
I sampled their vodka soda ($8), which I thought was on the pricier side of a simple bar rail until the bartender mentioned that they use Ketel One instead of Smirnoff or Absolut. As someone with a very sophisticated palette (I can tell the difference between a smartie and an M&M by taste), this was much appreciated and made for an even more delicious vo-so.
Around midnight, Same suddenly went from relaxed and chill to totally slammed. All of a sudden, there were fifty beautiful women, all looking seemingly identical in black dresses, sitting around the booths and ordering bottle service.
A man sipped brandy as he stood by himself and lip-synced to rap songs. One of the servers was almost definitely just wearing a black lacy bra instead of a shirt. A non- Jesse Milns photographer quickly walked up to me and unexpectedly took my photo and then was sucked into the crush of people, snapping photos of others as he disappeared.
By the time I left, Same was in full swing. The DJ was spinning high-energy hits, people were busting out sassy dance moves, and bottles were being brought out as quickly as the poor barback could light the requisite sparklers with his burnt, vodka-soaked fingertips.
Same was a fun place to have a few drinks on a Friday night. The drinks are simple, the decorating is minimalist and the music was good. But with so many options in the trust fund ghetto , is simply being inoffensive enough to make Same a success? Or will Same follow the same path as its predecessors, Cobra and West? For now, inoffensive is good enough for me.