The Midnight Kaiser

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

By Ben Cannon

Jackson Hole, Wyo.- It is the middle of a particularly cold night in February. I find myself behind a closed door, in the cluttered office of Alex von Salad. Empty champagne bottles decorate the old wooden desk, passed down to von Salad from his father, a wealthy Frankfurt businessman. A pair of antique African lamps made from zebra hooves has yet to find a functional home. In a corner of the already cramped room, two Go-Go dancers – a blonde with a pixie haircut and a petite brunette, both flown in from L.A. – remove false eyelashes and exchange 6-inch patent leather platform boots for something more sensible.

Later that night, with daylight on the horizon, von Salad slides behind a baby grand piano at his East Jackson residence and sets his hands to waltz a quick survey of music, from Mozart to barrelhouse piano tunes.

In less than a year, von Salad (he was given that moniker on a movie set for his popular salad dressings; his last name is actually Lehnen) has already created something of a name for himself in Jackson Hole.

Von Salad, a German-born Berklee College of Music grad, first left Europe to attend an elite Massachusetts prep school. At Berklee, he studied percussion and orchestral score composition for film. Later, as an itinerant jazz and rock band leader between New York City, Miami and Boston, von Salad realized his place was not performing on stage, but overseeing the doors and VIP backrooms of chic, high-end nightclubs.

Now with Café Ponza, a European-by-way-of-NYC-style restaurant, set to open in Jackson around Easter weekend, then the Club, still awaiting approval from the city (both located in the Pink Garter Plaza, west of Town Square), von Salad aims to supply Jackson Hole with both an all-budget bistro and a truly cosmopolitan lounge and dance club.

In an interview with Planet Jackson Hole, the leather pants-wearing club impresario with a fetish for vintage and designer sunglasses talks about orchestrating nightlife among the rich and fabulous, his designs for Jackson Hole and, yes, pizza by the slice.

Planet Jackson Hole: So, Alex von Salad, how did you find your way from Frankfurt, Germany to Jackson Hole?

Alex von Salad: I first moved to the U.S. to go to Deerfield Academy in 1988.

PJH: Why Deerfield?

AVS: Because the German schools wouldn’t have me anymore.

PJH: How come?

AVS: I got into fights with teachers and stuff like that. I didn’t like school very much, but then that all got turned around.

PJH: And then you went to Berklee College of Music, so how did you get into managing clubs?

AVS: I put some bands together, some different jazz and rock bands. We played some big shows. We played shows for 10,000 or 15,000 people at one of those big, open-air rock weekends. But I wasn’t cutting it for the money, that’s for sure, and I was always working in the nightclubs to make money. I booked gigs there because I knew the owners. Then I realized I could make more money working in the clubs than playing in the clubs. So I started running clubs and managing clubs as a bar manager, an operations manager.

PJH: What kind of clubs?

AVS: Nightclubs. I started on Lansdowne Street in Boston. I ran all those clubs. I was a doorman for many, many years and I specialized in turning clubs around, improving them, finding people who were stealing, revising policies. I kind of got a kick out of that.

My last gig with that was in 2001, when I got hired to run Nikki Beach in South Beach. We did 3,000 people on a Sunday – 2,000 paid and 1,000 were comped. I probably increased the door revenue by 40 grand in one night.

My specialty was coming in, seeing what was going wrong and fixing it. At the same time I was promoting parties, coming up with new concepts. Nowadays you have all these big name deejays I was working with through all those years. I was working with Paul Oakenfold and all of those guys when they were nothing, you know. It was kind of a little history of the nightclubs in the world. I worked some great places and I made a lot of money at it.

PJH: And what did these nightclubs most have in common?

AVS: They were very high end. We created the bottle service [a wide-sweeping trend of paying exorbitantly marked-up prices for a bottle of alcohol and ‘VIP’ seating] back in the ’90s. We came up with that idea – my group of associates and club owners. And I had, of course, my own bar and club in New York for a while in the Flatiron district. But that whole thing now where you go into a club and you have bottle service and a bottle minimum, we came up with that.

It was … all about the money, celebrities, rock stars, movie stars. My first encounter with that was on Lansdowne in Boston. The Red Hot Chili peppers were at the club. That was 1991 or 1990. We had the Chili Peppers in I think it was [singer Anthony] Kiedis and [drummer Chad Smith] sitting in the booth, asking me to get them girls. So I sent over a couple shots of Jägermeister and I sent over a couple of girls. That sort of stuff.

U2 came in. I got them the Dom Pérignon. Bono only drinks champagne, only Dom Pérignon. That was my first encounter with that kind of caliber of clients. Now my Rolodex is strong like that. I kind of got a kick out of it – making sure everybody got whatever they needed. I was the fixer. We’d have dinner and Prince would be sitting next to me with his girlfriend and I’d be dancing with this other girl. Shit like that. That’s New York City right there when we did our parties. Miami is even more like that with all the new money there. Miami was completely insane, completely insane. Miami almost killed me.

PJH: Partying too hard.

AVS: Oh yeah. You have to drink and party with these people every night. You can’t just tell the waitress you want water in your drink. You got to drink with these people. And you got to do all kinds of other things with them as well. It takes a toll on you. So then I decided I was sick of that and I moved to the mountains. My last job was in Las Vegas. I was helping out there to set up the new nightclub at the Hard Rock Hotel, the new club Body English. Vegas is the least favorite place I ever lived in. In my eyes it’s just way too seedy. In Miami you have the beach and the ocean. New York is New York.

But Vegas is so fake and then my house – the first house I ever bought – burned to the ground in an electrical fire. I lost everything I owned. And I took the insurance refund and I bought a beautiful mountaintop lodge in Park City, Utah, and retreated to the mountains and skied 120 days and never looked back. This was three years ago. Now I’m enjoying being in a place where it’s all about the mountain. I thought it was really cool. It was my rehab, really, my natural rehab.

PJH: People have different ideas about what you’re trying to do here – especially with The Club, for which you are awaiting approval from the city – that maybe you want to bring a South Beach mentality to Jackson Hole.

AVS: I wouldn’t say a South Beach mentality. Maybe South Beach when it started, which was really hip but now it’s kind of played out. But that’s more of an insider view of it. I think, first of all, that the town of Jackson needs more music.

Period. Be it a DJ or bands. There is a certain kind of music always available at the Cowboy Bar, at the Wort, which I appreciate. Some are more enjoyable than others. But I think this town needs some rock and some blues and some jazz. And it needs house music. We already got the hip-hop, there’s some good local DJs, but they’re not playing everything that there is. I’m a big house music guy. When we did that party a month ago, 325 people showed up. It was a blast. Everyone loved the music. Everyone was dancing from the minute they got there until they left. Which to me was a great sign.

I want to really bring music, live and recorded. I think people are aching for a place to go out in town. People are dying for something new and I want to give it to them. I’m open to input but I’m already learning what people want and it fits right into what I want to do. That being said, though people want to party and have a good time, this town also needs good pizza. There is no good pizza in this town, which is unheard of where I’m from. Most of the time there is decent pizza available in the U.S., but not in Jackson. We don’t want to mention any names but we all know there is no good pie in town. Combine that with the music and I think it will be a good combination.

PJH: But will you sell it by the slice?

AVS: We will do slices. The other thing I like to do is give it away to people almost like a bar food. Some people do peanuts; I’m going to do slices. If you spend some money on drinks, you’re going to get a free slice or two. It’s good to have food for everybody who drinks and it’s a great way to have people enjoy your product. It’s just another way of promoting.

PJH: You’ve already cut quite a name for yourself in a short amount of time.

AVS: I’m a people person. I go into a store and I immediately know who runs it, who owns it, ‘what do you do, are you cool, do I want to hang out, here’s my number, give me yours,’ because I know you’ll be eating at my restaurant or coming to one of my parties. Maybe you’ll come to my house for one of my private dinner parties.

PJH: You’re also a very noticeable presence. For example, you cruise around in a late model Range Rover, blasting loud house music.

AVS: I like my club music, that’s for sure.

PJH: I mean you stand out in this town. Physically, you’re kind of an imposing guy, and beyond that you’re a flashy dresser.

AVS: Clothing designers used to give me clothes and shades to wear at the door at the club. That’s how it worked. I got free clothes. Free haircuts, free this, free that. Everything was free because, ‘he’s going to be at the door of Nikki Beach with 3,000 people walking in tonight.’ I would never have gone out and buy a $400 shirt or a $400 pair of sunglasses. I got them always for free. But I do certainly like my clothes. I have one bedroom that’s dedicated just for clothes. One big closet, all clothing racks. I collect clothes and I collect sunglasses. My collection burned up in my fire but already I’m back to about 100 pairs. I used to have 300. I’m a sucker for sunglasses.

PJH: How do you think your ventures will fare in the usually casual social setting of this valley? It’s not Park City. Jackson Hole is not a flashy place.

AVS: That’s right. My nickname for Jackson Hole is the Martha’s Vineyard of the West. Everything is very low-key and that’s how I like it. Since I worked in the field for so long where everything was so flashy, I really enjoy being in a place like this now where it’s really all about hiking the backcountry and floating the river having a good meal and a good glass of wine and having a real conversation. I don’t care where you came from. I don’t care if you have a dollar or 10 billion in the bank, you can be just as cool and I really appreciate that.

PJH: But how will that easygoing culture figure into an upscale club?

AVS: Well, you know, there’s flashiness when you throw parties or have a nightclub. You want to create an experience or an environment to get people out of their daily routine to get almost into a dream world and enjoy themselves. I like creating that, but it doesn’t mean I have to wear a Rolex and talk about buying a new Porsche or something. That’s just boring. I’d rather tell you about my new skis. There’s nothing wrong with having money and buying sports cars and wearing jewelry, its just you don’t have to talk about it. Praising all the crap you have is very un-classy.

PJH: How would you respond if someone said, ‘Oh, this guy is from a big city and he represents something else, and he’s pompous and trying to bring his pompous ways to Jackson Hole?’

AVS: I’d invite them for dinner at Café Ponza with a nice bottle of wine, sit down with them and figure out why they think that way and I guarantee you that by the end of dinner they will have changed their opinion about me – by eating my food, by having my company and by having a conversation and a good glass of wine. I like to entertain. Next thing you know they’ll be at my house having dinner. That’s what I like to do privately. I always like having people around me. Wherever I go there’s a group of people around me.

Photo by Derek Diluzio for Planet Jackson Hole.
Is low-key Jackson Hole ready for the flamboyant Alex von Salad?
The club impresario speaks.

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The Midnight Kaiser | Planet JH News Article: Cover Stories

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