Hearne: Gusto Lounge Turns Over Not-So-Seedy New Leaf In New Westport Home

Leave us not mince words….

The Gusto Lounge and its forbear, the Lava Room at 3810 Broadway in Midtown, were joints of highly questionable repute. Without a doubt the hood on Broadway – especially at night – can get a little seedy.  A lot seedy at times.

Some of the online customer accolades over the years helped to tell the tale. Describing the Lava Room as "creeptastic," a place that "looks like the last stop before hitting rock bottom or a prep room for convicts."

After Gusto grabbed the Lava Room’s soiled baton two years back and reopened with a knock off Schlitz Beer logo, area hoodsters crossed their fingers, eyes and toes and hoped it might attract something approaching a kinder, gentler crowd.

Fat chance.

As evidenced by a comment added to an online Pitch item about the Gusto:

"Wow! I’m shocked at this place. Doorman took my beer from my hand as he chanted "n–ger move on, n–ger move on". Absolutely despicable for 2010. I’m still shaking from the shock of hearing that (surreal to hear the n-word). Gusto doorman also called some other blacks "spics". I dont know what that means or what he was trying to get at… I’m still in awe…I’m sickened by this place. Please don’t ever judge KC based on this ignorance and racism. disgusting. disgusting. disgusting."

All of that said, Gusto management wanted to clean up its act, the Pitch reported two months back

"No more tweakers buzzing around the bar. No more crackheads passing out in the corners upstairs."

To which the Gusto shot back on its Facebook page: "in your face Pitch… you suck"

So much for that future Pitch ad sale…

Finally now the Gusto has moved to the former longtime home of Stanford & Sons at 504 Westport Road. In recent years the building operated as Johnny Dare’s, a failed urban-themed bar called Karma and for a scant handful of week’s last summer, The Hell Bar.

Gusto 2.0 reopened last weekend with an "Angels vs. Devils Halloween Blowout" slash "Battle Royale."

The kinda crowd Westport nightclub nabob Bill Nigro expects it to draw?

"The same crowd that’s going to Union, Riot Room and the Record Bar," Nigro says. "They’re taking those steel bars that Craig Glazer put up for Johnny Dare’s down and restoring the building back to its original historical origins. They took out all the stuff inside – the sheet rock, the copper – and stripped the place down to the brick."

The $64 million question: will the classy, new new Gusto (still?) offer pitchers of Long Island Iced Teas and/or shatter its record for "most femmes in the ladies room"?

Stay totally tuned….