The excitement bubbles over mur.mur’s dancefloor with a slew of Pulsar ChromaSpheres.

Borgata gets its upscale lounge.
By Kerri Mason

They un-paved a parking lot and put up VIP paradise. As part of a $200-million expansion, three-year-old casino-hotel Borgata extended its building line – yes, right over a car field – and created swinging hotspot mur.mur, Atlantic City’s only bottle service club/lounge, and sister venue to Borgata’s established restaurant/club Mixx.

 “Mixx was created as a high-energy, fun dining experience that transitioned into a dance club,” says Sid Vaikunta, Borgata vice president of marketing. “Now that we had that, we needed a second nightclub experience that worked to be a little bit more intimate; slightly smaller with a different layout, to really step up bottle service.”

 The 8,300-square-foot, 608-capacity rectangular venue resembles others of its type – Light in Las Vegas, Marquee in New York – and its creators admit to being so inspired. “We think there are a lot of people doing this well,” says Vaikunta. Not surprisingly then, mur.mur will primarily feature mash-ups, hip-hop, and rock, and cater to a celeb-dotted clientele. DJ AM (aka Mr. Nicole Richie) even played the July 15 grand opening.

Bottle Friendly by Design
The space has three levels, a walkway surrounding the entire sunken dancefloor, two big bars, a large (but not too tall) DJ booth, and special VIP coves, for those special VIPs. It’s all rendered in rich chocolate and eggplant, with silken leather, plush drapes, and fine wood dominating the design.

“At Mixx,the whole venue is a party,” says director of nightlife marketing Eric Millstein. “At mur.mur, the party will be at your table.”

And you can bet that Millstein will make that table worth every penny of your $600-plus-gratuity. The bottle service maven – who helped launch and still operates Mixx – gets excited by every detail of the process, right down to straw placement. “We’ve thought of everything: How to put the napkins out, the glasses, where the bottles will go, the height of the table, the height of the seats. The tables were custom-designed; they can be danced on. So the bottle experience can be enjoyed as it should be, because it’s an expensive product.” Millstein reports that mur.mur’s 25 tables will be serviced by 12 waitresses and 20 bus boys, a truly customer-friendly ratio.

Systems of a Club
The club/lounge boasts a club-grade sound system – a six-point Funktion-One set-up with MC2 amplification and Biamp processing, “like one-and-a-half Cielos,” says designer Dan Agne of Sound Investment (Cielo, Ice). “The sound is perfect; it couldn’t be any more clear,” praises Millstein. “When I heard it for the first time, I got chills. Every space is warm and enveloping.”

 The highlights of mur.mur’s lighting – and the defining elements of its overall look – are over 50 Pulsar ChromaSpheres, dangling from the ceiling like VIP planets in an upscale solar system. Steve Leiberman of SJ Lighting (crobar, Ice) used both the 300mm and 150mm models of the LED-lit globes, interspersing the sizes for added depth. “It’s a really unique look,” he said. He also designed mur.mur’s dancefloor rig, which features a full range of Martin Professional pieces, including moving lights (MAC 250 Wash, MAC 25 Entour), foggers (Magnum Pro 2000), and strobes (Atomic 3000 DMX).

“People are willing to trade up for proper sound and light, a proper cocktail, and proper service, which we think is as important as it is in any fine restaurant,” says Millstein.

For now, the club will be open Friday, Saturday, and Monday for mur.mur Mondays, Atlantic City’s first industry night. But Borgata staff isn’t the least bit worried that the new hotspot will suck business away from old reliable Mixx. “We sell out bottle service every night at Mixx,” says Millstein. “We feel there’s enough demand that we’ll be able to fill both venues to capacity with bottle service on the weekends. They’ll only complement one another.”

 Because you know what they say: You don’t know what you’ve got, ‘til you’ve got more.

The Borgata.	Tables were custom-designed for dancing on.

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