Time Flies at Time Supper Club

By Zac Starke

A reflective ball dangles above the crowd, strobe-lights dance overhead, and the cat-walk reveals an aura of vast and provocative colours. A thunderous, resonating bass pounds in all directions against the club walls, drowning out the roar of patrons, and manifests itself as the heart-beat of Time Supper Club.

“It’s nice to always be surrounded by beautiful women, and cool people.” Says Freddy Havitov, manager and poster face of Time Supper Club.

Chasing its nine year milestone, Time Supper Club is renown for its classy, unique features, its being host to A-Lister celebrities, glamorous events, and its overall mass success as being one of Montreal’s most prestigious, and high class clubs.

Time Supper Club managers, Freddy Havitov and Polash Howlader, as well as head-busboy Emmanuel Robinson, give some insight into the history, secrets, up’s and down’s of running a successful night club.

“Around Grand-Prix weekend is going to be our ninth anniversary.” says Havitov with a grin. Located in the Old Port, on the corner of St Jaques and Cathedral, and placed in a trendy, 1930’s landmark Art Deco bank building, Time Supper Club opened it’s doors to Montrealers  during the summer of 2002 for Grand-Prix weekend.

“I think the key to our success has been our originality,” says Havitov, who has been with the club for four years now. “We were the first supper club in all of North America;” a supper club being a club which offers dinner service to clients so that patrons have the option to sit down, relax, and enjoy a high class meal before partying. Freddy continues “We even started bottle service, and it was us who started putting sparklers on clients’ bottles.” He adds, “And of course, our signature Cat-Walk, it’s kind of our calling card; it’s renown world-wide.”

 According to Polash, manager of bottle-service, and nearly synonymous with Time Supper Club, the key to their mass success is that they “treat [their] guests like family.” “The reason that we’re still on top,” says Polash with a wide smile, “is that when our patrons come in, we treat them like guests at our own homes.” He adds, “It also helps that we have the nicest venue in Montreal, amazing staff, all kinds of different people who come into the club, looking for a good time and to meet new people,” Polash continues, “And they do, Time has a very good vibe, and it’s the only club in Montreal with a catwalk.”  

“Out of my entire eight years at Time,” recalls Polash, “my best memory would have to be when DJ Sasha came.” He continues, “I think it was in 2004, I’m not sure I’ve been here for a long time, but I remember I went outside, and couldn’t see the end of the line.” He adds, “It was probably the best night I ever had here, I was so excited.”

 Amongst others, Time Supper Club has played host to celebrities like Angelina Jolie, U2, Leonardo Di Caprio, Jude Law, Morgan Freeman, Madonna, Kieffer Sutherland, Bon Jovi, Robert Downey Jr., Ben Affleck , Travis Barker, Micky Rourke, Tommy Lee, and “so many others, if I kept going I’d probably run out your entire page.” Jokes Havitov. “That’s not even counting our performers and DJ’s.” Some of Time’s passed performers include big names such as Lady Gaga, Edward Maya, Christina Ageuleira, Tiesto, DJ AM, Jazzy Jeff, The Black Eyed Peas, Sean Kingston, Drake, DJ Sasha, Steve Aoki, and Timbaland; amongst several others.

“We’ve even had Prince Andrew here,” says Freddy. “You name them, and we’ve probably had them.”

“I think what makes people want to come here,” says Freddy simply, “Is its beauty; its class.”  “I think we have the most unique club in Montreal,” elaborates Freddy. “We have the high ceilings, chandeliers, dinner service; we have all beauty and class of a fancy restaurant, combined with an up-scale club.”

 But according to Emmanuel Robinson, head-busboy, and who has been with Time Supper Club for approximately four years, the secret to Time’s allure is their “extra services, different events, and [their] resume of big name celebrities who have come to Time in the past.”

Whether the patrons be players from the Montreal Canadians, Hollywood celebrities, or just their usuals, it is certain that Time Supper Club “goes the extra mile,” as Emmanuel puts it. “Time is the only place,” he began, “where they will have us change the setup a million times in the same night to please a customer.” “Polash runs a pretty tight ship here,” says Emmanuel with a tone of humour, “he’ll spot anything that needs to be done, and yell if it’s not done right, and right away.” He continues, “Like I said before, insane extra service.”

 “But it’s cool working here,” says Emmanuel, “everyone who works here is really close with each other, and everybody gets along really well, like a family, and that’s what I think makes the club work.” He says, “Because if the people who work here don’t get along, and don’t want to help each other out, how can you expect anything to go properly?” he concludes, “It just wouldn’t work.”

 The busboys, whom are more or less the back-bone of the club, take care of everything from making sure that clients have clean tables, to switching the tables for bottle service, and essentially, the club would not function without them. For example, though the waitresses pretty faces are the surface layer of Time Supper Club’s service, it is the busboys who do all the leg work, like bringing: a client’s bottles to the table, ice buckets, limes, straws, napkins, juice to mix drinks, cups; all within five minute intervals. A busboy at Time is also afforded the luxury of cleaning and setup before the club opens, as well as after it closes, literally removing every single chair from the upstairs to the basement during the transition between dinner and bottle service at the rush hour, bringing food to the table for waitresses, and even moving couches, tables, the stage, DJ booth, and sometimes even the entire cat-walk in less than an hour before the club opens; in some instances, after moving everything, and completely re-doing the setup for the night, and then they have to put it all right back to the original layout for the night.

The busboys are also essentially the eyes and ears of the club, who oversee everything that the clients do, from puking under a table, to puking on the cat-walk, to puking on the terrasse; spilling drinks, breaking cups, throwing up in cups, as well as anything the imagination is capable of mustering up in regards to messes, and bad drunks; on occasion, the busboys have been known to bring Ginger-Ale to overly-drunk clients in order to soothe their stomachs, as well as water. Not to mention that there is always at least one busboy on bathroom detail, who walks through every few minutes to make sure nobody has sex in the bathrooms, that there is no mess in the bathrooms, and just basically to make sure the line-ups move accordingly, as well as to make sure that on the nights of blizzards that nobody uses the back door to the terrasse.

Another important aspect of Time Supper Club is it’s wide range of events and age groups which it can cater to. Time Supper Club is known mostly for its Saturday nights, but it also hosts corporate nights for companies like Phyzer, Lasik MD, and many others.  

“We do weddings, bar mitv-vahs, charity events, corporate nights, singers, fashion shows, promoter nights, parties for the launch of products, after-parties for celebrities,” says Freddy, “We try to do it all, because the trick to running a successful club is to change it up, and cover all the bases.” He continues, “For instance, on Thursdays and Saturdays our age group is typically around 25 to 28, and on Fridays we normally try to get a more college aged crowd,” says Freddy, “like around 19-ish.”

“I’d have to say though,” begins Freddy, “it’s a lot of work running a club, you’re getting calls all times of the day, you get almost no peace or quiet, and have to deal with bullshit all the time,” he says, “but its all worth it, because when the doors open up, and people start to dance and have a good time and spend money on bottles,” he continues with a smile, “then you know did your job right, and that’s when you can relax, have some drinks, and party.”

“But the downside to throwing a good party,” says Freddy, “is that there’s always gonna be some idiot who drinks too much, or starts a fight or whatever, but that’s just part of the business that you have to get used to.”

Besides the odd customer who drinks too much, the clubbing business does have its obvious downsides, and inconveniences.

 For Polash, some of those downsides are: “We have to work very, very long hours, sometimes more than 11 hours a night so that everything gets done,” says Polash. “We also have to stay awake all night; I go all weekend without seeing the sun.”

“When I see the lights come on at the end of the night,” begins Polash, “I just get happy because I know a few more hours, and I get to go home and sleep; when the club closes, we all just go home and want to relax.”

Freddy offers tips benefitting from his experience in the clubbing industry to those who hope to break into the business.

“My advice to anyone who is looking to open their own club,” says Freddy, “is don’t.”         

“Or, not now at least,” he explains, “it’s not the right time, there’s too many clubs in Montreal right now for the population; a new one is opening every other month.”

 “If you do decide to open a club though,” says Freddy, “you have to make sure to surround yourself with the right people.” He continues, “It’s a very tough, and expensive business, and it could be a while before you start to make money, because you have to get your name out there, and just try out different ways of throwing a party until you find something that works.”

  “Like I said, it takes time, money, the right people, and a lot, a lot of luck,” says Freddy.

“We’re even planning to renovate for the Spring,” says Freddy, “we put half a million dollars into the renovations so that we can re-launch Time for it’s ninth anniversary, and keep it on top in Montreal.”

“We’re even getting a giant multi-media screen on the back-wall of the club,” he says with a grin, “so it’s gonna be cool to see what happens over the next few months.”

 The lights gradually become brighter, as the DJ slowly transitions from hip hop into light rock, the drunken crowd roars for more, and boo’s the inevitable last call for drinks. The staff of Time Supper Club breath an almost unseen, and collective sigh of relief as patrons make their way out the door, and although it is the end of the night, the fun continues into its ninth year, for Time Supper Club.