Dancing, music and more available at Club NVO
Bass beats thumping, bodies bumping and grinding, people looking for someone to hook up with. This is not typical Cache Valley behavior. But Club NVO is not typical Cache Valley entertainment.
“It isn’t your Sunday afternoon dancing,” said Derek Ritter, who co-owns the club with his wife Lisa Barrus. “There’s no other place in Logan that has dancing like that.”
Club NVO features two dance floors, each with different types of music. It also has a karaoke room which doubles as a performance venue for bands, a lobby with pool tables and a counter selling non-alcoholic drinks, energy drinks and smoothies.
The club offers several different types of entertainment with different themes each night that draw in very different crowds, said Ritter.
Thursday night is College Night, featuring country dancing on one floor and hip-hop on the other. Kaari Rowberry, a freshman interior design major, said she visits Club NVO because she enjoys the hip-hop music and dancing. Sophomore psychology major Mary Tate said she appreciated the club attracts an older crowd than some other dancing venues, although she said the mirrors that surround the dance floor make dancing awkward at times.
Friday night features live, mostly local bands from Logan, Salt Lake City and Idaho. Occasionally they also feature larger national acts, such as Friday night’s Afroman concert. Ritter said the audience on Friday nights varies depending on the artist performing but that the night is “more about the music than dancing.” Many of the local bands draw in a large high school crowd as well.
Saturday night is Latin night, featuring salsa music either from a DJ or live bands in one room and reaggaeton-a combination of reggae, hip-hop and Latin music. He said Saturday nights are largely dominated by Hispanic couples, especially when larger performing acts from Mexico come to the club.
Although each night offers different themes, the pool and karaoke, included with the price of admission, are consistently popular each night (although the karaoke is not available on Fridays). Barrus said the club has regular patrons who come every week for the karaoke.
The atmosphere of the club leads some patrons to have reservations about the venue. Rowberry said she disliked having unfamiliar guys continually trying to dance with her.
“There’s a lot of pressure to dance with the opposite sex,” even if someone just wants to dance alone or with another person, she said.
Tate said she wouldn’t go to Club NVO again because of the negative environment at the club.
Club NVO has existed now for four or five years, said the current owners, though it was originally named the Skyline. Barrus and Ritter purchased the club about three months ago. Barrus said she regularly went to Salt Lake City to go dancing and thought Logan could use a similar club atmosphere.
They said they would like to make several changes to give patrons more entertainment and party options. They are currently exploring opening a VIP room and surveying patrons to see what they would want in the room. They would like to include video screens in the room that oversee the dance floors, making the room a sort of small party within the big party of the club.
Additionally, they are exploring the option of holding ultimate fighting contests Wednesday nights at the club.
Mostly, however, they would like to increase the visibility of the club.
“We were here a year and half and didn’t know [the club] existed,” Ritter said. They plan on increasing signs on Main Street and advertising more.
Club NVO, located at 339 N. Main, is open Thursday, Friday and Saturday each week from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. The cost of admission is $5 on Friday and Saturday, and $4 for College Night, with an additional dollar off for Resident Club Card holders. Some concerts, such as tonight’s Afroman show, charge more for admission.
-tliljegren@cc.usu.edu