The old Little Club was a cocktail of rebellion and razzle-dazzle, tucked in among the brash, roaring joints that defined early Prohibition. While the Palais Royal waltzed with Paul Whiteman and the Moulin Rouge twirled in its Parisian fantasies, the Little Club was pure American swagger—loud, crowded, and dripping with bootleg whiskey. It belonged to that glittering crew of joints like Bal Tabarin, Montmartre, and the Tent, where the food was forgettable and the managers were foreign-born impresarios who couldn’t care less about the menu. Their currency wasn’t cuisine—it was chaos, charisma, and cold gin. The crowds didn’t come to dine; they came to forget, to flirt, to feel.
Later, the new Little Club doubled down on the dazzle, trading in silent mystery for full-throttle entertainment. Phil Baker cracked wise, Sid Silvers shot out punchlines, and Martin Harris pulled in the crowds with enough charm to light the room without electricity. This wasn’t a place for the refined or the restrained—it was for those who wanted a front-row seat to the madness, where laughter echoed off the walls and the booze flowed as if the Volstead Act were just a bad rumor. The Little Club wasn’t just a speakeasy—it was a celebration of the untamed, a snapshot of a city that never learned how to behave.