Hot clubs compete for weekend crowds.
and caters to a certain type of clientele — it’s a favorite
of the 20-somethings and the college crowd. “The
Jungle definitely fills a need for a mainstream dance
club allowing us to focus more on the abstract and less-
er-known artists and music types,” said Keith Martin,
co-owner of John Henry’s.
But as the newness wore off, the weekend draw dropped
to a regular crowd of around 300 to 400. But Renner expect-
ed it. “People get sick of going to the same place,” he said.
“Chocolate chip cookie dough may be an
excellent flavor of ice cream, but you don’t
want to eat it every night.”
Legendary bluesman
That’s one of the reasons he never
Bo Diddley tore it up at
conceptualized The Jungle as solely a
The Jungle last spring
dance club. The size of the club allows
at his 75th birthday
bigger acts than the WOW Hall or John
celebration.
Henry’s with equally low ticket prices
because the club has a larger capacity. So
The Jungle fills the gap between the
McDonald Theatre, which can afford to
bring in huge, national acts, and smaller
clubs. And booking agent Jeff Gaulton
brings in an impressive array of bands,
from Bo Diddley to Toots and the Maytals
to Reverend Horton Heat and the
Supersuckers (March 27).
Douglas Fuchs does most of the pro-
motion for the McDonald Theatre but
also designed the website for The Jungle.
“Jeff has a lot of connections with East
Coast agents and he also books down in
San Diego,” Fuchs said. “He’s an
extremely talented buyer. He has a rela-
tionships with agents that other booking
agents in this town don’t have. Some of
what he brings has been here before but a
lot of it is unique.”
Does Fuchs think The Jungle can succeed in a space
Lounge. “But the number of people that come here to
where other clubs have already failed? “Yes. They have sta-
dance on a weekly basis tells me we’re still Eugene’s
ble management and a really qualified talent buyer.”
premier nightclub. As a bartender here I’ve had the
As for Renner, he said he’ll stick around as long as he
pleasure of meeting a very large, diverse crowd who
can stand the rock star lifestyle. As we parted ways, he
come exclusively to Diablo’s to ‘shake their booty.’ I
was making breakfast plans for 8 am even though he was
think the newness of The Jungle had a large part to do
going to be up much of the night, watching people shake
with their winning.”
their booties.
Maybe. But The Jungle has its own niche in Eugene
b
For the first six months, The Jungle was the place to be
on weekend nights. Every Friday and Saturday, Renner
said about 700 people showed up to shake it on the dance
floor. And last fall, Eugene Weekly voters definitively
picked The Jungle as “Best Place To Shake Your Booty” in
the Best of 2004, an award that had previously gone to
Diablo’s/Downtown Lounge three years running.
“We were surprised to hear that The Jungle won,”
said J.R. Willis, a bartender at Diablo’s/Downtown
NOW OPEN!
OPEN!
NOW
TODD COOPER
I
t was New Year’s Eve 2003 and Doug Renner
had less than $500 left in his checking account.
He’d put all his money and savings into opening
The Jungle and he was nervous.
“If things hadn’t gone the way they had …” said
Renner, his voice trailing off before he finished the sen-
tence. “Well, put it this way, it was everything I had.
And it was the end of the month and I had a bunch of
people to pay.”
But things went well. Very well. All
night a line of people waiting patiently to
get in snaked around the block. Drinking
jungle juice and dancing under the cam-
ouflage nets and faux palm trees, more
than 1,000 people brought in 2004 at
Renner’s new club.
He ended the night with enough money
to make payroll and quite a bit more. “It felt
pretty darn good,” he said. “But I’ve been
around the nightclub industry long enough
to know one night doesn’t make or break
you. You have to keep reinventing yourself,
keep changing.”
Originally from Port Angeles, Wash.,
Renner, 31, has lived in Eugene seven
years. He did most of his undergrad at
Reed College in Portland but left just two
classes short of the credits he needed to
graduate. He finished at UO with a degree
in psychology, then got his MBA, also
from UO, in 2000.
After about a year and a half at Eugene-
based accounting and business consulting
firm Jones & Roth, he quit and started
working at Joe’s Bar & Grille as the gener-
al manager. When The Annex, an all-ages
club in the same space The Jungle now
occupies, started to lose money, Renner teamed up with
an anonymous investor, bought it and transformed the
club into The Jungle.
“Eugene has never had a club that was more than four
walls and a dance floor,” he said. “We’re trying to provide
an enjoyable experience going out, something you’d find
in a big city; not getting you as plowed as possible on
cheap drink specials.”
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