The Pharmacy

 

By Netera Landar

“All you Hotsy-totsy dolls, and rollin'-in-money gents, get your sweet little selves over to Pet’s Pharmacy”

The Pharmacy is the cat’s meow!

Creating a Speakeasy in a virtual world dominated by oldies, blues, classic rock, jazz, and heavy metal venues requires extensive research.

That’s exactly what Pet Pinklady and her team did.

Pet owned a rock-and-blues club before The Pharmacy. When someone suggested creating a venue that captured the vibe of a speakeasy, she thought that was a great idea. Pet closed her club and opened The Pharmacy during COVID, when everyone was homebound and needed something uplifting.

“I did a lot of research on speakeasies and found that a lot of them were in basements. If you glance at my building, you think you’re looking at a drugstore. You have to go through a secret passageway, like you had to sneak in during the 1920s. The entire venue is decorated in that era’s style. It was so much fun,” said Pet as she sat with me at the venue’s bar. She’s wearing a silky pink gown, a white stole, and a long strand of pearls. In her hand, a swirl of smoke rises from her cigarette holder.

Pet said that she wasn’t familiar with swing music until she opened The Pharmacy. Through DJ Suzie, who spends hours every week finding appropriate music, and Thomas Crown, she learned about the genre. Suzie, who is the club’s DJ on Saturdays, plays revival swing, which isn’t the original records. They are more of a modern-day swing. Loren is Tuesday’s DJ. He prefers original swing music and throws in electro-swing.

Asked if it was challenging to find period-specific furniture, drapery, and décor, Pet replied that she learned many of the speakeasies had black-and-red interiors. When she first opened The Pharmacy on the July 4thweekend of 2020, she had a red-and-black design, but she decided to change it to black-and-gold. 

There are two different builds. The exterior presents a pharmacy that actually masks a second building, accessible only through a wall portal. Click the arrow, and your avatar crawls through the wall and enters the club. Pet purchased the build from Marketplace, took it apart, and retextured everything.

“I probably shopped for months. It was a labor of love. Everything you see here, I purchased separately. It was challenging, but when I was done, I was really pleased with how authentic it was,” she admitted. 

It took her a long time to find the right dances to pair with the music, but she did.

Attendance gradually grew as her regulars from her previous club started attending the shows. Then, in October 2020, Angela from Focus Magazine wrote an article that increased attendance. Pet promotes her venue through Events, Facebook, and word of mouth, which play a significant role in attracting attention to the club.

As for the hosts, she has three regular and one substitute. Arella Soren and Laurianya rotate on Saturday. Eve Thornhill works on Tuesday, and Piper Waterfalls is the substitute. Piper is also the social media manager. She posts events on Facebook.

Asked what brings the venue’s regulars back week after week, Pet replied, “The feeling of belonging to a family.” That was another reason she opened the venue.

“We talk a lot in chat about what’s happening in everyone’s lives,” she said. “People tell me that they don’t get the same feeling in other clubs. Top it off with good music. That always brings people back.”

Netera