The Final Curtain: Joey's in Clifton, NJ, Closes Its Doors on a Storied Nightlife Era July 15, 2006


In the Drakkar Noir drenched annals of New Jersey's club scene, few names evoke the raw pulse of Saturday nights like Joey's. Tucked away in the industrial hum of Clifton, this unassuming powerhouse on Allwood Road wasn't just a venue—it was a pressure cooker of sweat-soaked dance floors, thumping bass lines, and fleeting romances forged under strobe lights. For nearly five decades, under various guises, it drew crowds from the tri-state area, turning blue-collar kids into temporary rock stars and locals into legends. But in the summer of 2017, after a string of chaotic incidents and a decisive city council smackdown, the doors slammed shut for good. The closure of Bliss Lounge—the final iteration of what started as Joey's Place—marked not just the end of a nightclub, but the fading echo of an entire generation's wild heart. As one former patron lamented in a recent NorthJersey.com retrospective, "Every night was Friday night... Everything was over the top." Today, with the 2025 nostalgia wave cresting, Clifton's loss feels like a microcosm of how America's party circuit went from euphoric excess to enforced sobriety.



To understand Joey's closing, you have to rewind to its gritty origins in the 1970s, when disco fever gripped the Garden State like a fever dream. The venue that would become Joey's first flickered to life around 1970 on Van Houten Avenue in Clifton, evolving from a modest nine-stool tavern into a full-throated nightclub. Originally tied to the Clifton Pub and Casey's Supper Club—an elegant spot with long-gown waitresses and candlelit dinners—it shed its supper-club skin for something edgier. By the early 1980s, flamboyant restaurateur Joey Barcellona, a Garfield native with a boxer's grit inherited from his father, Joseph Sr. (a middleweight contender who fought as "Joey Harrison"), swooped in. Barcellona, described by friends in a 1981 Herald-News profile as a man with the "Midas touch" and "friends in high places," reopened the spot as Joey's Place in 1980. It was a swanky dinner-and-dancing haven, close enough to the city to lure Manhattan escapees but rooted in Passaic County's working-class soul.

Barcellona wasn't your average club owner. Born in 1936, he cut his teeth in the nightlife trenches, building an empire that included the legendary Joey Harrison's Surf Club in Ortley Beach—a Jersey Shore staple he acquired in 1973 and turned into an oceanfront mecca for live bands and beach bums. But Clifton was his inland jewel. Under his watch, Joey's on Van Houten became a magnet for the era's soundtracks: Bee Gees grooves giving way to Michael Jackson moonwalks, then the hair-metal roar of the late '80s. Patrons packed the 500-capacity room for $5 cover charges, sipping $2 drafts while eyeing the mirrored walls and fog machines. "You think that it's going to go on forever," Barcellona's contemporary Donald Menditto, owner of the rival Dweet's chain, reflected in a 2025 interview about the pre-crash glory days. Menditto's clubs shuttered after the drinking age hiked to 21 in 1983, but Joey's adapted, thriving on its reputation as a safe(ish) haven amid the crackdowns.

By the mid-1990s, as the original Van Houten site (now a Charlie Brown's steakhouse) showed its age, Barcellona eyed expansion. In 1997, he decamped to a larger 3,500-square-foot space at 955 Allwood Road, rebranding it Joey's Nite Club or simply Joey's Place. This new digs, in the shadow of the Richfield Shopping Center, amplified everything: bigger stage for hip-hop acts, expanded bar for frozen daiquiris, and parking lots that doubled as pre-game tailgates. The menu leaned hearty—buffalo wings, loaded nachos, and steak sandwiches—to fuel all-night ragers. Celebrities trickled in: early sightings of Trey Songz crooning slow jams, Snoop Dogg puffing through haze-filled sets, and Rick Ross commanding the VIP. For locals, it was ritual. High school sweethearts slow-danced to Boyz II Men; factory workers decompressed to Biggie Smalls. A 2003 Clubplanet forum buzzed with rumors of a $1.3 million sale, but Barcellona held firm, running it smoothly for a decade. "Joey's was great," recalled a Facebook group member in a 2022 post reminiscing about the Van Houten-to-Allwood transition. No major scandals under his reign—just the good kind of trouble, like impromptu conga lines and dawn-aftermath regrets.

Barcellona's tenure wasn't spotless, though. In 1981, he faced arrest for allegedly offering a $10,000 bribe to a state trooper to quash a complaint involving the son of Genovese crime family boss Phillip Lombardo. A 1980s State Commission of Investigation report alleged he paid "ice"—tribute—to organized crime figures to keep operations humming in Clifton. Cleared or not, it added to his larger-than-life aura: the promoter who booked Springsteen openers at the Surf Club, the hustler who turned dives into destinations. He sold or stepped back around 2007, citing health or burnout—details fuzzy in the oral histories. The club shuttered briefly for "renovations," emerging as Bliss Lounge under new management by Glen Franco of Joey's Place LLC. Yelp's business profile notes the 2007 relaunch, touting fresh paint and updated sound systems. For a spell, it worked. Bliss kept the hip-hop pulse, drawing 80,000 visitors yearly with bottle service and LED lights. But the vibe shifted. Where Joey's felt like a neighborhood block party, Bliss veered toward bottle-service brawls and after-hours edginess.

The unraveling accelerated in the mid-2010s, as social media supercharged crowds and lax oversight invited chaos. Between July 2015 and September 2016, Clifton PD logged 123 calls to the club: two fights, four disturbances, six noise complaints, two disorderly conducts, and five car crashes in the lot. Shots rang out nearby in October 2015, riddling a patron's sedan with bullets; whispers of gang beefs circulated. Neighboring businesses suffered spillovers—Dunkin' Donuts staff menaced by Wednesday-night mobs, Rite Aid shelves ransacked by teens spraying Axe body spray like graffiti artists. Buco Ristorante, the Italian fixture next door since 1998, fielded complaints of Bliss-goers urinating in their lot, hurling bottles, and denting cars while rooftop-perching like urban monkeys.

The tipping point hit August 31, 2016: a "teen night" hyped on Instagram for Brooklyn rapper Young M.A.'s set. What started as 525 ticketed kids aged 13-17 ballooned to 500 inside (near capacity) and 1,000-1,500 outside, choking Allwood Road. Jostling turned to shoving; exits blocked. Passaic County sheriff's officers unleashed pepper spray, hospitalizing two teens at St. Joseph's in Paterson and injuring eight more. The three-hour shutdown mobilized Clifton's entire police force, plus fire, EMTs, State Police, and aid from Nutley and Bloomfield. No riots, but the optics scorched: a citywide teen-night ban ensued, with Bliss's entertainment license slapped on six-month probation. Rules tightened—no events past 1 a.m. (down from 2:30), max two acts per night, zero under-18s. Mayor James Anzaldi vowed ABC charges; Police Chief Mark Centurione called it a code violation. Franco's attorney spun it as a "private party," but City Attorney Matt Priore shot back: no public ads allowed.

Probation proved a farce. By March 2017, another melee erupted: hundreds queued outside on the 12th, parking overflowed, weed wafted, liquor littered the ground. When cops declared capacity (550) reached, the line surged; security retreated as a Georgia man flashed a handgun, netting three arrests. The council, fed up, unanimously revoked the license on April 11, citing "nuisance endangering public health and welfare." Councilman Joe Kolodziej motioned it through; attorney Kenyatta Stewart begged for a Superior Court stay, but Judge Ernest Caposela denied it. Franco appealed, but by June 26—mere days before liquor license renewal deadlines—he surrendered keys and lease to landlord Allwood Investment Company. Movers hauled inventory as neighbors exhaled. "Finally, it's over," sighed Frank Bucco Jr. of Buco Ristorante. "I don't know if it's going to stay that way but, for now, it's a good thing." An anonymous City Hall source speculated Franco dodged renewal fees, eyeing the "writing on the wall." The space? Vacant ever since, a ghost in the shopping plaza, occasionally eyed for retail but too nightclub-haunted.




Joey's closure rippled beyond Clifton, punctuating the North Jersey club's slow bleed. The 1983 drinking-age hike, Reagan's 1984 federal mandate, and DUI crackdowns had already thinned herds; by the 2000s, homebound habits and apps like Uber sidelined destination spots. A 2024 Gallup poll pegged U.S. adult booze intake at a 1939 low; Princeton data showed daily home time up 99 minutes since 2003. In a September 2025 NorthJersey.com oral history, 12 scene vets mourned the void. Door man Malcolm Sillars, who bounced at Joey's, recalled the shift: "The whole market changed... It was a generation of nightclubs." Bartender John Meitzler evoked 140-decibel Twisted Sister gigs at rivals like the Soap Factory: "Every night was Friday night." Singer John Lenza, who rocked Joey's stages with his band Condor, grieved: "You're playing in front of 1,500 people for years, and then, all of a sudden, you're playing for people eating chicken fingers." Waitress Patricia Hollenfer cherished the camaraderie: "You made lifelong friends... It was the best place."

Barcellona's February 2024 death at 87 in Miami sealed the elegy. Tributes flooded Facebook groups like "Joey's in Clifton 1986-1991 & 1997-2006," hailing him as the "legendary founder" whose Surf Club empire—razed by Sandy in 2012, sold to the state for $7.3 million—mirrored Joey's resilience and ruin. His son Joey Jr. posted: "A truly great and courageous man... our Happy Place." No public services, but the legacy endures in grainy photos: packed floors, fog machines belching, smiles frozen in '90s Polaroids.

What does Joey's shuttering say about us? In an era of TikTok raves and sober-curious millennials, it whispers of a time when nightlife was analog—messy, communal, unapologetic. Clifton, with its Dingbatz holdouts for goth kids, clings to fragments, but the big-tent bangers are gone. As Lenza sighed, "It will never happen again... The impact was so much that we're suffering today." Raise a ghost toast to Joey's: for the hookups that lasted, the hangovers that bonded, and the beat that, even silent, still drops in memory. The lights are out on Allwood Road, but the party's echoes? They'll thump forever.

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