Cover Story: Pink Garter hits it's Stride, The Rose Blooms

Words & photos by Aaron Davis (for JHWeekly.com)Jackson Hole, Wyo. - As I step over extension cords, power tools and guys in Carhartts working diligently on the façade of The Rose, the posh interior takes me by surprise. The early 1900’s décor has a deliberate contemporary stamp. It looks and feels cozy even during midday. As he greets me, Dom Gagliardi, the visionary, owner and talent buyer of both The Pink Garter Theatre and its adjacent counterpart, The Rose, is getting asked a myriad of deadline-pushing questions from worker bees.“Let’s take a seat in the gangster booth,” he says as a piercing fire alarm interrupts us for a few minutes.I already had my eye on the booth. The deep red leather tufted booth was custom built to be tall and circular for comfort and privacy, unable to see the next party over. A crystal, candlelight-style chandelier dangles from above, lighting up a wavy ceiling and brownish-green, art-deco-style flocked wallpaper. The details seem precise, timeless and posh.“We’ve paid attention to every little detail,” Gagliardi assures me. “We could have built a bar cheaply, but instead we did exactly what we wanted to do on a higher level, and remodeled a good portion of this building to do so,” Gagliardi said of The Rose. “You heard the new fire alarm.”While there are numerous angles and intricacies as to how The Rose came to be, it’s worth revisiting the deeper history of The Pink Garter Theatre. Each entity is going to change the face of our local nightlife scene in a major way, and here’s why.The plaza acquisition The Pink Garter name was originally established in 1959 at the Jackson Hole Playhouse building (built in 1912) by Paula Jeffries, “a richly flamboyant woman described by one source as ‘the most beautiful ugly woman I’ve ever met in my life,’” according to PinkGarterTheatre.com. Jeffries relocated the Pink Garter name to The Pink Garter Plaza in1970, establishing the current theater space that would go on to be owned by local investment groups, Utah politicians, a New York investment group; the list goes on and on.The theater’s usage was also widespread, with a focus on local dance and wholesome theater not unlike the shows that run at the JH Playhouse in the summer. Jackson-native Molly Moon Thorn danced on the stage as a child in the 1980s, and later danced as a pre-teen with the 4H Performing Arts. At one point, it was called The Lighthouse.“One of our favorite things was that there was a piano in the men’s bathroom,” remembered Thorn, a local singer and actress. “Someone had put brass tacks on the hammers, and we would sneak in and play it. There were stories about ghosts in the theater, which had a lot of old furniture … couches with fancy backs, velvet wallpaper, and a castle-y Western vibe.”The theater lay dormant for about 10 years before Playmill, a Utah theater company that ran its course for two years (2007-2008), began hosting more Western/dinner-theater type shows.Gagliardi’s production company, Poppa Presents, would have its first opportunity to produce a show at The Pink Garter in November of 2008 with a sold-out Grace Potter and The Nocturnals concert during off-season. Despite the concert’s success and Gagliardi’s realization that this was the venue, Gagliardi was still part owner of JH Playhouse. During the time that he got out of his involvement with the Playhouse, Pink Garter Theatre owner Dudley Miller had partnered with the slick, Hollywood-treated, Reba McIntire-narrated Jackson Hole to the Max in summer 2009.As the hype of Jackson Hole to the Max began to fade, Gagliardi was forming a business plan that could attract investors, and ultimately secure the key ingredient: a retail liquor license. (Some may remember this transitional era via the now-defunct Facebook fan page, “Downtown Venue Campaign JH.”) Once Gagliardi secured ownership of The Pink Garter, it was time to put all campaigning in fast-forward in order to clench a green light for the space’s instrumental progression—The Rose.“Once the liquor licenses were released, we spent three to four weeks working day and night to put together a proposal for Town Council,” Gagliardi said. “I think the council [issued the license to us because] it saw an underserved area of downtown that needed life; a facelift. Everything started happening on top of each other, you know, cart before the horse … establishing the lease, getting investors, going to permit, inspections—all in an effort to activate the license before the two-year deadline of May 25.”A blueprint blossomsThe space in which The Rose encompasses is located across the street from the Silver Dollar Bar on Broadway, up the plaza stairs and to the left (facing the theater’s main entrance and connected to the theater via two smaller rooms and offices). Over the years, the space has been both vibrant and dormant—the rumored-to-be rowdy Highlander Bar was there in the 70s, as well as an ice cream shop, various retail shops, Dancers’ Workshop’s Black Box dance studio, and then empty during JH to the Max.After five months of day and night construction, re-designs, and varying degrees of stress, The Rose will open its doors this week with a 25-year lease attached. Besides Gagliardi’s core team of employees that includes general manager Erica Reilly and bar manager Maura McGuigan (respective imports from Bend, Ore. and Chicago), the design was spearheaded by Gagliardi’s wife, Anna Butler, before she teamed up with Steve Dynia Architects, and contractors John Jennings and Fritz Wieters of Peak Builders Inc. carried out the construction—sometimes staying until 2 a.m. to finish a day’s project. This all culminated into what Gagliardi described as “a camaraderie” in which everyone went the extra mile to complete the job before deadline.The icing on the cake came via Proprietors, LLC, an award-winning New York City-based company run by Alex Day and Jackson-native, David Kaplan. The company oversaw beverage programming, staffing and schooling of employees on everything from body mechanics when pouring a drink, to the technical side of how to build cocktails—what kind of ice is used, how long to shake it, which drinks get stirred, and how to make sure people get quick service considering the time spent crafting each cocktail.“Our training from Proprietors felt like a seminar on the graduate level about distillation, the history of spirits, and how they tie in with different historical events,” Reilly said. “It was impressive and all of the employees were blown away by the girth of their knowledge.”Gagliardi added, “The Rose is a 100-seat, stand-alone cocktail lounge that has a lot of offerings that don’t exist not only in Jackson Hole, but this part of the country. Besides needing a bar that can put out the volume of drinks necessary for a concert, it was the question of, ‘What else does Jackson need on a daily basis for nightlife?’  I think we have good restaurants in Jackson and I think we have good bars as well, but we don’t have one like this. It’s a beautiful space, but it will also be a beautiful experience with a whole level of hospitality that we are working on.”The open, physical layout of The Rose also allows for servicing the high demand time frame—usually two to three hours—of a concert, while also being conscious of both the privacy needs of an intimate date night or small group (the high booths), and the see-your-friends social scene (tables and chairs in the middle). Despite having a top-of-the-line Meyer sound system, The Rose will not host live music, at least for now.“I think a lot of people, myself included, really are looking forward to having a place to go where you can hang out, enjoy cocktails, hear yourselves, and know what you’re going to get when you walk in,” Reilly said. “That’s not to say that we won’t have live music at some point, but for now we will be playing music that matches the cocktails.”While the lounge’s menu does have a mix of beer and wine, its niche falls within the boutique—vintage, classic, contemporary, and even pre-cocktail offerings like punches that are served in a vintage punchbowl and are meant serve four to six.“Prior to the industrial revolution, men would sit and enjoy a big [punch] bowl for hours,” Reilly explained. “Traditionally, a punch is a spirit, a tea, citrus, sugar, and something bubbly. Once the industrial revolution occurred, there wasn’t time for leisurely punch bowls, so that became abbreviated into one glass worth.”One of the two punches on the menu is called “Kill Devil Hills.”  Ingredients include bourbon, campari, oleo saccharum, black tea, angostura bitters, sparkling wine, and grated nutmeg. Another interesting item, which falls under the batch of “original cocktails,” is the “Ten Cent Claude”—an $8 concoction of Four Roses Bourbon, house made Darjeeling syrup, muddled tangerine and lemon, and angostura bitters.As for food, small appetizer plates like a beet salad, popcorn, olives, and a cheese plate will be offered for now. But, as is the nature of any establishment pushing to get its doors open, there’s a bigger plan for the future.“Between The Rose, the lobby space, and theater, we can accomplish a lot of different things, like being able to stretch out into an event space or show an independent film,” Gagliardi said. “We have a small food service right now, and then we want to work towards putting in a full kitchen. We want this space to be used, and we’re going to let it evolve.”New music and modificationsWhile the management is gung-ho on the acute details of The Rose, I turn to the music lineup that has, and will, grace the theater’s stage this winter. It’s a monumental turning point in our local music scene. It’s no longer when it’s going to happen; it is happening.Fans that have seen a recent concert in the theater (for example, last Wednesday’s sold-out Leftover Salmon show), realize what is common street talk. Besides bringing quality acts—some that we all know, and others that are great up-and-coming bands—this is a real deal, music-lovers venue with a big stage, quality lighting, and a few choices on where to position one’s self based on preferences.Changes to the interior of the theater were few, yet key. The boxy projection booth around the soundboard was removed as to aid the audio engineers, a front section of seating was removed to create a general admission space near the stage, a set of stairs were moved to create a fire exit to the alley, and a mess of old rigging around the stage was stripped down to its shell. The configuration works for many types of concerts and events and will evolve with time.“I think the size and capacity [350 seated, 450 standing] of the theater is the perfect showcase venue size,” Gagliardi explained. “In a city of a million with a year-round population, you can take more chances on shows. The way I look at it is places like The Independent in San Francisco, or The Depot in Salt Lake, or The Fox Theatre in Boulder, and especially The Belly Up in Aspen—are a big model for what we’re doing.“The Belly Up has similar attributes and in my proposal to Town Council, I tried to explain that they do 175 shows a year at varying price points, and it works as a downtown venue in a town with a similar population.  We can slowly work towards that by being a showcase venue, taking some chances on bringing these bands through, and putting them in front of the public.”In particular, the blossoming indie-rock genre has been seriously underrepresented over the last several years. Since jambands, bluegrass, reggae and hip-hop have all done well at the Mangy Moose and Knotty Pine over the last decade, established booking agencies have rarely considered Teton County as viable routing for indie-rock acts traveling between Boise, Salt Lake City, Bozeman and Colorado markets. Gagliardi and assistant talent buyer, Matt Donovan, hope to break that mold and put The Pink Garter on the radar for bands like Sallie Ford and The Sound Outside.This is the time, live music lovers of Teton County, to not only rush out and see the bands that you’ve been seeing for years (i.e. Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe, Young Dubliners), but to take a chance on bands that all of your friends aren’t talking about. Like the past-you-by potential of seeing The Avett Brothers at a $5 price point; it’s an exciting time to be proactive and discover your new favorite band. This recently happened to me when perusing YouTube of upcoming shows. I’m amped for two bands that I knew nothing about as of last week—He’s My Brother She’s My Sister (Mar. 8) and Blitzen Trapper (Mar. 25).In March alone, there are eight shows. Off-season will bring Tea Leaf Green (April 22) and Reverend Horton Heat (May 20).“It’s a good time for music right now—the songwriting is different, the sounds that people are able to put together into their songs is super creative, and having a venue that we can see national talent in downtown Jackson, then get up and ski the next day—that’s amazing,” Gagliardi said. “That’s why I decided to live here—was to be able to accomplish that.”