Night Lines

Night Lines
Ivan Kane, owner of the soon to be open Cafe Was in Hollywood. The location is still under construction.
Photo Credit: Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times

By --

February 14, 2008

NIGHT LINES

Ivan Kane knows a thing or two about Hollywood. The New York transplant opened his influential nightclub Deep in 2000, long before the W Hotel was knocking on the neighborhood's door. But Kane is probably best known for his other Hollywood-adjacent club, burlesque den Forty Deuce, which has done so well on Melrose Avenue that he opened an outpost in Las Vegas at Mandalay Bay in 2004. Now, a flush-with-cash Kane is returning to the heart of Hollywood with a brand new concept club and restaurant near the former site of Deep, Cafe Was. "I wanted something that was bohemian chic," says Kane of the "slightly beat-up and distressed" décor. He's hoping for an April launch of the 150-capacity, bi-level supper club, which will boast a grand piano in the middle, three bars and a large patio. The main room will be "so warm and inviting that Alicia Keys could drop in unannounced prior to the release of her CD and the 100 or so people there will be the luckiest people in the world," says Kane, who hopes he can get both the early theater crowd (food will be served) before they hit a show at the Pantages, and the late-night drinking denizens of the "new" Hollywood (it will be open until 2 a.m. nightly). Cafe Was will have "a sense of soul," promises Kane (pictured inside the venue at 1521 N. Vine St.). Its most unique feature? A so-called "staircase to nowhere" -- which, just as described, dead-ends into a wall. . . . Venerable Sunset Strip venue the Viper Room has been sold. The new majority owner is Pink Taco founder Harry Morton, whose father Peter co-founded the Hard Rock empire. Morton plans to keep the Viper Room name and hopes to capitalize on the club's cachet by opening up other Viper Rooms in cities like Las Vegas and Scottsdale, Ariz. Former owners Blackhawk Capital will retain a minority stake.