Return of the G… Back by popular demand (and by dbraun Promotions) is Video DJ Roonie G. The G returns this Saturday to Mez slash EpiCentre Theaters.

They are converting the larger theater into a full on night club equip with a dance floor and bars. Big screen… big party.

Wanna go? First two people that e-mail me at brittney.cason@creativeloafing.com get a pair of tickets to the theater … for the party. Ready, set, send!

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Sushi, sake bombs, and a taste of the Big Apple
By Megan White

With the opening of more than three new sushi bars in the Uptown area — Fiji, Room 112, and Enso — in the past few months, one can safely assume that sushi rolls whose names no one can pronounce and sake bombs are the new trend. According to Cy, one of the owner’s and executive chefs of Cyros Sushi Bar, the new sushi spot opening in the SouthPark area, his place is bringing a new flavor and different flair to the menu of Charlotte’s sushi spots.

Unlike Enso and Fiji, Cyros won’t be concentrating on the nightlife and entertainment aspect of promoting their sushi. Sorry guys: No half-naked girls lying in front of you covered in barely there leaf loin cloths with strategically placed raw fish on them. It’s all about the rolls, rice … and sake at Cyros.

Never heard of Cyros as a franchise? It hasn’t been around. For years, Cy Santos and Ro Lawsin have been business partners while promoting their sushi through major sporting events such as the U.S Open, Bobcats and Panthers games and the Wachovia Championship.

The idea of Cyros originated from a cute little place called Nobu, one of the most popular sushi bars in the heart of New York City. These guys plan on bringing the same upbeat New York atmosphere to Charlotte, but without the ridiculous pricing. A night out for great sushi and even better sake will run you about 20 bucks. Can’t beat that.

All of the sushi rolls are made from scratch, specializing in signature rolls such as the Avant Garde, which Cy likes to call his most “kick-ass roll” thus far.

Although the soft opening for Cyros is Dec. 3, and invite-only, the grand opening should be soon thereafter. I’ll definitely keep you guys posted on how those “kick-ass rolls” taste.

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Apparently, someone took a can opener to Cans and its Canteen because the lid has reopened, according to owner/operator Jay Runnfeldt … for now.

Cans closed quietly, right before last weekend’s Panthers home game nonetheless — which seemed suspect to me as that didn’t really sound like standard procedure for Cans … especially the quiet part.

So, they’re re-opening tonight for the Panthers game … and so they can go out with a bang. The lid will remain open until the Panthers’ final game on Jan. 3 (because obviously our cats aren’t making the playoffs).

Cans will only be open Thursday, Friday, Saturday (nights) and Sundays when the Panthers play. And their big finale will be their New Year’s Eve party and the Panthers’ last home game.

Come say farewell and drink a can for Cans!

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I would like to take the liberty of saying that I am happy that The Liberty Gastropub has replaced McIntosh’s on South Boulvard.

I went for lunch this week and upon approaching the table the waiter greeted us and offered us a beer … at 12:30 in the afternoon? I like this place already.

Makes sense because said place not only has a beer monopolized menu, but it’s even decorated with beer. Literally. Even in the dining room there’s a beer mural that kinda–sorta looks like a fish tank, which inspired me to come up with the genius idea of having an actual beer filled aquarium (which I accidently turned into an outside thought).

My friend’s response: “Right Britt, then we’ll also have beer coming out of the sink, too. This is a restaurant, not Willy Wonka’s Beer Factory.” Oh, but I beg to differ. The columns are made of kegs (now that’s what I call a keg stand). Wheat grass is used as floral decoration with kegs serving as vases, and the chandelier is made from beer glasses.

Meanwhile, the bar is lined with 20 beers on tap … and another 60 in bottles. They even have PBR on tap… and Jewish Brew He’Brew and Big Hoppy Monster … and the apricot-flavored beer I ordered on my lunch meeting. The Liberty’s beer selection rivals that of Revolution in NoDa and Mac’s BBQ right down the street.

They even rotate their beer selection …

Every day they have a different “Beer Bomb” The day I was there it was this …

Aren’t you like, not supposed to mix beer and liquor. How about beer and cake? A shot of Chocolate Stout is included on the dessert menu.

Speaking of The Liberty being a gastropub (and gas in general) … remember this article I wrote about releasing gas from your beer when you mix it with food? This is especially applicable there because you will want to eat. I had a 30-minute debate over what to eat for lunch because I wanted to eat everything.

The Liberty has been open for a few weeks, but they are having their grand opening celebration tonight! Go see for yourself!

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According to owner/operator Jay Runnfeldt, Cans has closed its doors. This is not a rumor, the lid on the can is officially closed. I wish a can opener would open it back up though because Cans has been a staple of Charlotte nightlife for the past few years, and we will miss it more than MC Hammer misses money and David Spade misses Chris Farley.

But when one door closes another one opens. Such as …

• Dandelion Market …
A small plate party place brought to us by the management team of Madison’s, Connoley’s, Tyber Creek Pub and The Attic. Opening in mid-December in the old Latorres restaurant location between Fiji and Basil, Dandelion Market will have 2 levels, 2 full bars, 24 craft style beers on tap, and 30 menu items ranging from $4-$15. Oh, and a coffee shop.

• The Wooden Vine is coming soon to a bar near you … as in Zink on Tryon.

• Speaking of wines and vines, The Grape at Northlake Mall is now Forte and they offer live jazz every Wednesday.

• Cyros Sushi and Sake Bar is opening soon in South Park.

• Twenty-Two in Plaza Midwood and The Liberty on South Boulevard both recently opened, too, which you can read about on Creative Loafing’s new comprehensive nightlife blog @LARGE

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My girlfriends joke that their periods last longer than my relationships … so I’m not really inclined to celebrate anniversaries. But I do tend to celebrate a lot of bar anniversaries. That, or there are just a lot of them this month.

From oldest to youngest …

• Cosmos Cafe is turning 12, and they’re celebrating all week. Do you remember turning 12? Boy, were those years awkward and adolescent. I wonder if Cosmos is going to start their period this year … because that’s about the only thing I remember about turning 12.

• Dixie’s Tavern is turning 11, and they’re celebrating this Friday with a free buffet from 8 p.m.-10 p.m. with all new menu items – which you can wash down with drinks so cheap it’ll almost feel like open bar.

• On the Roxx at the Lake is turning 5, and they’re celebrating next Saturday, Nov. 21 with live music from The Pursey Kerns Band, free food courtesy of Matt’s Chicago Dog, UFC 106 Pay Per View and a special guest DJ TBD. (As in To Be Announced … that’s not his DJ name. Just clarifying because that’s totally what I thought upon first read.) And … it’s a charity cover. $5 Donation Benefiting Huntington’s Disease Society of America

PS- There’s also an On the Roxx AND Cosmos in Ballantyne as well.

• Wild Wing Café in University is turning 1 … not to be confused with its red-headed stepsister in the EpiCentre. And they’re celebrating this Friday and Saturday with live music with The Brent Cates Band on Friday and The Aristocrats on Saturday. There is a picture of a cupcake in the ad, and I think they should give out those as well … just saying.

Whenever you see the words “Anniversary” next to a bar’s ad, you can already assume that there will be good deals and a good time. It is their birthday party after all!

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Why don’t I just tell you what I’m doing this weekend and you can join me if you like …

Thursday:
I’ll probably work out after work just so I can justify going to Cosmos Uptown and gorging myself in a 3-course meal for $12 to celebrate their 12 year anniversary. After I eat myself into a coma, I’m going to migrate south to South Charlotte for the Ballantyne aloft and wxyz bar’s grand, grand opening party. And I may go check out Cosmos in Ballantyne while I’m at it for their inaugural ’90s night … and maybe even eat some more.

Friday:
Debate over which outfit I’m going to wear for entirely way too long for as much as it matters, and then show up late to meet my friends, who thankfully are probably running late, too. You know, I wish Virginia Tech offered Time Management 101 courses because I am pretty much late for life.

We’ll probably start at Kashmir for the Debauchery party hosted by my homeboy Mike Palladino. We’ll then mosey on over to Madisons to bid adieu to my fellow paid partier, Charlotte Observer’s Paid to Party Sarah Aarthun who has taken a job with CNN in Atlanta. And then we’ll, as inevitably and always, end up at the EpiCentre … this time for ELEVATE Lifestyle Magazine’s 6th anniversary party at Suite. (I write for them too, you know).

Saturday:
Leave Uptown and really going out on the town …

… to Plaza Midwood to check out Twenty Two, the new alcoholic art gallery under Soul Gastrolounge, where you can peruse, booze and schmooze. And then to CAST to see the real Saturday Night Live … Robot Johnson.

Sunday:
A day of rest … yeah right. A day of rest for me would be one for which I had time to clean, do laundry and grocery shop.

And if those chores are completed I will pay myself an allowance and permit myself to go to Elizabeth for some chili eating and football watching at Jackalope Jack’s for Good Eats Charlotte and the Go Social Club Chili Cook-Off and former Panthers Dan Morgan tailgate block party. I myself never pass up an opportunity to eat … or play games — there will be some competitive skeeball cooking up as well. Last time I went to Jack’s, I won the top score on Wordster (yes, that is further evidence that I am a dork in my real life) and when I tried to insert “A bunch of bitches” as our team name it beeped at me and told me “Bad Word.”

By the way, since when has technology gotten so smart? And smart ass to boot. I don’t know about you, but I am tired of Facebook telling me who I should poke, whose walls I should write on … and suggesting I be friends with my ex. And since when has spam infiltrated blog comments? I keep getting comments on here about UGG boots on sale. I wrote them and told them since they are using me for free advertisement they need to send me a pair.

Side note: Will the guys who wrote me the following e-mails please not take this blog as an opportunity to stalk me. I roll deep.

Hi Brittney,
I spent the first 35 years of my life in NYC, and 18 in South Florida. So, I KNOW hot women. I saw you at a Charlotte Knights game 2 years ago, you are definitely NY/South Beach worthy. You’re gorgeous. So my question is, why do you photograph so horribly? Your face looks all bony and sharp edged. In person you were so much hotter. You need a better photographer!
Cheers,
John

Or how about this one …

Dear Brittney…..
I am a great admirer of YOU and the 3 Wide Life program – With your talent, poise and beauty you definitely add a uniquely wonderful dimension to the show…. I have an extremely special request to ask you: In reference to 3 Wide Life Episode # 503 (Greenville Pickens) I took special notice of a rather inticing and lovely pair of Black High Heel Pumps worn by you – I am an AVID and extreme high heel enthusiast and collector and would be most honored to add those EXACT/SPECIFIC shoes to my Personal collection…I would gladly compensate whatever the cost would be to replace the heels in your personal wardrobe as well.ANY understanding and consideration that you can extend to me regarding this unique and special request would be forever appreciated…THANK YOU for your attention!!!!
Best Wishes,
Tom

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A while back I wrote a column entitled Tales from the ladies’ restroom, which, in summation, indicated that females tend to flock together like birds of the same feather when in the ladies’ room. But not too long ago, on a weeknight in Suite’s bathroom, I found myself having to bond a little more than I ever bargained for.

As I eagerly scurried my impatient bladder into the ladies’ room, I was greeted by a girl passed out up against the wall. People were just walking by her — no one seemed to know nor notice her. Apparently, I have motherly instincts because I felt inclined to make sure she was OK. I alerted the bathroom attendant, who was busy soaping and drying girls’ non-tipping hands, that there was a girl passed out in the back of her bathroom. She hadn’t noticed her come in and was thus unable to provide any clues to the mystery. So we questioned some of the girls coming and going … “She belong to you?” But no one claimed her.

At that point, I found myself wishing there was a lost-and-found for humans that I could drop her off at — because clearly I couldn’t just leave her with a clear conscience. So, I tried to wake her up. I spoke to her, I nudged her, I shouted to her, I shook her … nothing. She just laid limp soaking in a vat of her own vile. As I reached for my phone to call 911, the bathroom attendant came over with some water for her, which I proceeded to splash in her face. That woke her up.

She belligerently begged me not to call 911, swore she was alright but was just really really drunk, and then asked for help to take her outside to get some air. So I went and retrieved some bouncers to help me help the lady lush. As soon as we lifted her up she puked all over herself, with my hair catching the shrapnel. She had pasta for dinner, just in case you wanted to know.

Let’s try that again. The bouncers gave her another lift, which in turn lifted up her skirt – her skirt that was a mere few centimeters below her vagina. She wasn’t wearing underwear either. I pulled down the piece of fabric she was wearing as a skirt as the boys carried her outside to the back side of the Suite patio. I grabbed her purse, along with some towels to help clean her, and the bouncers off.

Once outside she tried to walk on her own, but as soon as the bouncers let her go she stumbled so fast and hard to her right that she hit the wall, and slowly slid down as the bouncers assisted her fall to her ass so that she may plop on the cement gracefully and gently.

At this point, she was conscious but making about as much sense as a ferret on crystal meth. I asked her her name and she replied in a language that wasn’t English, but rather just incomprehensible drunken babble. I asked who she was there with and she looked at me as though that question was beyond her skill level and then proceeded to pass out again.

Meanwhile she attracted a crowd of bouncers and bar staff, who all assumed I was responsible for her, like she was my puppy that kept pissing on their carpet.
“Why don’t you just take her home,” someone asked me.
“Well because I don’t know who she is, let alone where she lives.”
“Oh, you don’t know her?” they asked.
“No, I just found her in the bathroom.”
“Congratulations, finders keepers …”

Let’s just say at that point if I lost her I wouldn’t have weeped.

“You were that kid that always tried to bring home the stray dog from off the street weren’t you?” another bouncer asked me.

That I was … but for some reason I remember having more compassion for the stray animal than I did this stray drunk girl. Both me and my resources were exhausted and though feeling irrational with the wafting smell of her vomit protruding off me, I did what I thought rational — I went through her purse to find her I.D. and phone.

I saw that she had a badge for a nightlife photography company. Knowing the owner and having him saved in my phone, I called him and told him one of his employees was passed out alone at Suite and I didn’t know what to do with her.

“She doesn’t work for us … she got fired months ago because she’d go out and just get really drunk and not take pictures. She just kept her old badge to use to get into clubs without a cover. In fact, can you take it back from her?”

OK, so, on to the next lead …

I went through her recent call log and dialed the most recent calls. I got a lot of voice mails, and a girl that answered to me: “I don’t know what to tell you, leave her there.” It occurred to me that the reason I was stuck babysitting this girl is because she doesn’t have any friends.

The bouncers said they were going to call an ambulance, which perked her up like an alarm had just went off.

“Noooooooo, don’t you … no call ambulance. Mumble mumble mumble. I can drive.” Apparently, this girl was on crack, too.
“We’re not talking about calling you a cab sweety, you need to go to a hospital.
She gave me a disdained look of confused concentration, “F……fffff…uck you.”

No, fuck her. I told the bouncers she was their problem now and they informed me they were going to call an ambulance. So, I went back into her phone and went to the name “Mom” and called and left a message to tell her that she can retrieve her daughter from the hospital. My job was done there.

Cason-Point: Don’t drink too much … and know the difference between your friends, and drinking buddies because your drinking buddies will leave you in the bathroom. That, and no good deed goes unpunished, or unpuked on, should I say.

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My Saint Sarah has graduated from her internship with me, but has left me with her collegiate colleague, Megan White.

Megan will be my eyes and ears at the bars — and behind the bar as she works in the service industry. And she has nightlife vision goggles, too, might I add. She writes about what it’s like to go behind bars in Charlotte bars.

Introducing Megan White …

Tales From Behind the Bar
By Megan White

On any given weekend night, you can always find your typical types roaming around the EpiCentre in Uptown: the drunk girls who are in hot pursuit of cheaper shot specials, the middle-aged party of bachelors who are making way too many unnecessary Ric Flair hoots from the bar, and you can’t forget the clique of college students who will probably be laughing hysterically all night at each other … or until one of them passes out in the nearest bathroom stall. And then there’s me … the person behind the bar that has a front row, and sober, view of all of it.

With five main bars, Whisky River, Suite, Strike City, Mez and BlackFinn, one can only imagine what the EpiCentre chaos consists of on the weekends (and actually remember). I can honestly say working in the EpiCentre has truly left me humbled; I am constantly meeting the “Who’s Who” elite of the Queen City along with a nice handful of Panthers, Bobcats and other celebrities … but they aren’t necessarily the people that make my job worthwhile.

Even when you think no one is watching you argue with your boyfriend in the corner, make out with the girl on the dance floor or pick your nose in the corner — just know that we have seen and see anything and everything.

I’ve witnessed everything from an intoxicated Panther fan throwing a glass pitcher at the hostess podium, to a physical altercation in the pouring rain between a sober guy and wasted girl. Sure, it can be entertaining, but it makes our jobs harder and leaves us wondering what in the hell is wrong with today’s society.

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According to Jay-Z, “after the party it’s the hotel lobby” … or, you can just have the party at the hotel bar.

BLT in the Ritz Carlton just opened, and pretty much the entire hotel lobby is a lounge. It stands for Bistro Laurent Tourondel — not bacon, lettuce and tomato. In fact, a BLT in that joint would probably cost you $15, for lunch.

It’s not cheap… it is at the Ritz after all and the lounge is well, rather ritzy. And their organic cocktails and premium wine list of the lobby-lounge correspond with the price range of a steak house.

It’s been open a few weeks and since then has been the hot spot for N.Y. Knicks and pretty much every celebrity that comes through Charlotte.

The Ritz also has live music in the lobby-lounge on weekend nights

Meanwhile, the Aloft Hotel is opening in Ballantyne. And just like uptown it has the w xyz bar.

Since it’s at a hotel you can grab a complimentary USA Today or Wall Street Journal, sit down at the lounge and read it… or, play pool. The furniture at the aloft is unique — I was sitting on the cushioned coffee table, and one sofa looks like something straight out of psychiatrist office. It made me want to lay down and talk about my problems. They were smart not to keep it far away from the bartenders or else someone really may.

Also, you can purchase a snack at the hotel general store, or jump on the computer and check your Facebook. I learned it’s not a good idea to change your facebook status after a few drinks.

The grand opening party for Aloft Ballantyne is Nov. 12

Cason-Point: you don’t have to be checked in to check out the nightlife within hotels.

There’s also Café Sienna at the Holiday Inn, Chambers in the Crowne Plaza, Champions and Cutter’s Cigar Bar in Marriot Center City, Bar 10 at the Westin, Coastal Bar at Hilton Center City and the more appropriately titled Lakefront Lounge at the University Hilton …. and if you’re staying at the Days Inn on Woodlawn you can go to the Azteca restaurant for a little fiesta fiesta.

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