Old Town is Getting a New Hip Hop Club. But if You’re Under 25, You’re Not Allowed In

Steakadelphia owner Rolando Mingledoff plans to open the Mingle Lounge by September

IMAGE: Courtesy of DJ Nayiram.
By Matthew Korfhage

Old Town's East Chinatown Lounge will soon become a new hip-hop and R &B club called Mingle Lounge, named after its owner Rolando Mingledoff, owner of Powell Boulevard hoagie shop Steakadelphia.

The catch? Mingle Lounge will only allow patrons 25 and older.

"I have a 21-year-old daughter,"  says Mingledoff, who also has 23- and 24-year-old sons. "I ran into my daughter not too long ago at a bar. I want to go somewhere where I don't have to run into my kids."

But Mingledoff says the idea of his planned Northwest Everett Street club is also aspirational. “When I was younger, you’d look forward to times you could hang with the older crowd,” he says. 

Spokeswoman Joy Williams says that the OLCC has no problems with setting a more restrictive age. It's also not unprecedented: In 2014, former Cully bar Magoo's—which since closed and became Pizza Jerk— decided to exclude patrons under the age of 26 after violence at the bar, subsequently raising the age to 30.

Mingledoff also plans to renovate the former East to include a VIP section, and he's turning the barstools into hanging swings. But don't expect his trademark cheesteak sandwiches, says the Philadelphia native: East's kitchen doesn't have a hood, which means he can't grill on a flat-top.

Mingledoff says he hopes Mingle Lounge will be open by September.

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