Sophisticated Gentlemen's Club Celebrates 17th Year Anniversary
Jeff Kimbrel is the founding owner of Sophisticated Gentlemen's Club, located on Eastern Avenue in Southeast Grand Rapids. The name of the club spawned from the men that he saw as a teenager and the impression they made on him.
"I was in my teens when I would see professional gamblers and business men dressed to impress, and it made me aspire to be like them," said Kimbrel.
Later, it would be his turn to impress. When he purchased the building on Eastern, he started renting it out to churches.
"I decided that I would take the building, start a club in it and call it Sophisticated Gentlemen's Club in 2002."
He got some friends to go along with him and they originally started a key club, but later on found out that idea was not going to work for them.
"The idea of the club has always been dedicating it to the community," said Kimbrel. "I remember that when we first opened, we did tutoring after school. We watched a lot of kids who attended Oakdale School grow up and now we see them today with their own families."
He added, "They remember coming by the club and eating cereal in the mornings or they would come and get pop cans and quarters from us.
A lot of the original club members have passed on to a better place but the club still operates. About five years ago, the members decided to get women involved.
"That move helped us to build the club more because women know how to raise money and do more things than men."
The name of the club also went through a name change, Sophisticated Gentlemen's Club and Ladies Auxiliary. The club operated for along time with no liquor license, but after being busted twice for serving liquor with no license, the club members decided to do the right thing because we do too much for the community and continue to grow as a membership club.
"At this time we are not non - profit so what little we make we put back into the club and into the community. We support about five main churches in the city, because a lot of our members are involved in church. I myself am a member of Macedonia Baptist Church, but we give a tithe every month."
The club opens its doors to those in the community who don't have a church home for family repasts, meetings, birthday parties, wedding re- ceptions, family reunions, open houses and more.
"A lot of people used to think that the Sophisticated Gentlemen's Club was a strip club because of the name and we continue to tell people that the club is not a strip club; it is just the name of the business," said Jeff.
"We truthfully are more community based and we give a lot back to the community. I can remember a few years back when the club adopted three kids who had lost their mother. We bought them school clothes, bikes, school supplies and things like that for three years. We are family and community oriented establishment. We also do special things for the community on Easter, Halloween and Christmas. We also decorate the club's window for Easter, Halloween and Christmas; and when we don't, we get calls from people asking us why we didn't decorate."
Jeff says that he would like to see the club become more involved with the community, and be more flexible with children and adults.
"We are also thinking about going back to doing the block parties."
He went on to say, "We want to cater to the community more ,but we also want people to understand that when they come through our doors, it is about obeying our rules because we don't have many places similar to our club where Blacks can go," said Jeff.
"Sometimes, people get angry at us because you have to be thirty - years - old to get into the club, but we figure that at age thirty, most people are not going to cause too many problems."
The biggest thing that I want people to think about the Sophisticated Gentlemen's Club is that it is in the community, for the community. We want to be known as the club that gives a lot back to the community from which we are from."
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