Diamond Bar (Adjacent) Night Club Aims for High-End Guests

Dancing may have been tabled for new businesses in Diamond Bar, but just over the city border in Pomona, dancing is a go. A go-go.

Luna nightclub, on Temple Avenue, pumped $3.5 million into a former sports bar to create a club that promoter Raoul Garcia is "in a class all its own."

The vibe is distinctly high-end at the night club and restaurant that features bottle service, top deejays in electronica and Top 40s, and Mexican cuisine from Chef Alfonso Ramirez, who worked for years in Mexico and helped form what he calls "Nuevo Latin cuisine."

Garcia and the club's promoters previously worked in Hollywood but said their decision to move East was to cater to a population without an accessible club providing what he said was a "Las Vegas" experience.

The closest competition, Garcia said, is from clubs like 8Eighty8 in Newport Beach and the Marquee in Las Vegas.

Garcia said the renovation was a transformation of the previous sports bar, which was not in good shape.

"The place was a dump," Garcia said. From the mandatory valet parking to a "media wall" in the entryway where guests take glamour photos before entering, the club intends to give patrons the feel that they are entering on a movie premiere or are part of a celebrity entourage.

While guests may feel they are being swept away to a place that is not adjacent to a Shilo Inn and down the street from a Wendy's, they may be further confused about where they are by publicity materials put out by the club.

Luna often advertises its location as Diamond Bar despite having a Pomona address, but Garcia said the reason is largely practical.

"When people hear Pomona, they think of downtown Pomona," Garcia said. "We're just right across the border from Diamond Bar, and it's easier for people to find us that way."

Such a business might have difficulty finding a home in Diamond Bar after the city council passed a resolution last year to prohibit new bars or clubs offering dancing or certain live entertainment in response to one over-18 nightclub that created problems for the city.

However, Mayor Steve Tye said that if the Diamond Bar city limit were expanded slightly to include club Luna, it would most likely be sufficiently far from homes or schools to operate its current business.

Still Tye said that he would prefer if the business didn't misrepresent their location as being in Diamond Bar.

Tye said his only concern was that "if there was a problem — as there have been in that location under different names — that that would be associated with Diamond Bar."

But Garcia said his club aims to bring in a different clientele.

"We want to bring in the right element," Garcia said.

Garcia said guests come from as far as Hollywood, and the club is making waves with downtown promoters who are beginning to wonder what might be out East to draw a crowd.

"That we're causing some waves out there is a big thing," Garcia said.

The reason, Garcia said, is largely because of big-name electronica deejays at the club on Fridays and Top 40s deejays on Saturdays, along with hosts like playmate Jessica Burciaga who will be at the club Saturday night.

Putting $3.5 million into a new business in a tough economy could be seen as a big risk, but Garcia said the club's market has some recession-proof qualities.

"When the economy is good, people drink," Garcia said. "And when the economy is bad, people drink."