New Magic Club in LA!

You’re in LA, sniffing around for something to do, can’t get into The Magic Castle or looking for something less expensive? There’s a new place in town: Black Rabbit Rose.

LA Magazine writes:

An extraordinary new magic-themed nightclub called Black Rabbit Rose is … on Hollywood Boulevard, and it looks spectacular. The latest enterprise by the Houston Brothers (the twins behind La Descarga and numerous other theme bars) includes a 40-seat theater, a Thai-Chinese dinner menu, and a cocktail lounge featuring roaming magicians, exotic variety acts (think sword swallowing), and burlesque dancers. The club was custom built with rooms that might suddenly come to life during performances.

The rooms are filled with tributes to 19th century magicians and tucked into a century-old apartment house. The flamboyantly ornate interior, dripping with gilt and velvet, may even remind you of the Magic Castle, less than a mile away. In a genius move, the club secured the services of longtime Castle favorite Rob Zabrecky as entertainment director and occasional performer. Charles Addams could not have cast the role better. Zabrecky’s cadaverous pallor and aura of foreboding create the gravitas that his spellbinding performance deserves. If you see his name on the bill, hotfoot it over to the Boulevard immediately. Black Rabbit Rose [is] open Tuesday through Saturday with ticketed shows ($25-$40) on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights.

The Hollywood Reporter writes:

[Black Rabbit Rose] is a new-school twist on Hollywood's famed Magic Castle, catering to the fantasies of the A-list millennial crowd. … At Black Rabbit Rose, bartenders serve complicated cocktails with a side of sleight-of-hand tricks. A classic Zoltar machine is rigged for staffers to tell fortunes remotely. And in the back, a 40-seat theater has been engineered with shaking floors, false walls and trick lighting for performances ($25 to $40) booked by magician Rob Zabrecky, whose work hosting the live show Brookledge Follies inspired Ryan Gosling to cast him in his directorial debut, Lost River. "It's amazing, the trouble they went into with this space—the details permeate every beat," says Paul Reubens (he and friend David Arquette consulted on the project).