When one club closes, another one opens.
That's how we here at Crossfade summed up the Miami nightlife cycle in the opening to our profile of downtown's Therapy when it launched during Miami Music Week 2013.
But you know, maybe we'd have been closer to the truth with something like, "When one club closes, another one says, 'Screw going out of business,' and turns into a nudie bar."
See also: Therapy Miami Opens for MMW 2013 With Boys Noize's Miami Noize and 11 Other Parties
That's right ...
After just five months, Therapy, originally a house and techno party spot like nearby downtown mainstay Space, is abandoning its clothed business model and seeking to stiffen its bottom line by becoming a gay male strip club.
According to a manager, though, the joint will be keeping the same name. And the ownership hasn't changed either. It's simply switching formats and transforming into "a private nightclub," as the grand opening flyer hypes, "that accents adult entertainment!"
Over the years, this 60 NE 11th Street location has housed a number of other nightlife ventures, including Kukaramakara (now in Brickell) and much-missed hipster club Studio A. But none have lasted.
So maybe the new, naked Therapy, like its non-nude predecessors, is doomed to failure. Or maybe an all-dude exotic dancing palace, run by a veteran like former Cupid's Cabaret owner Michael Brown, is exactly the kind of biz that'll thrive in downtown Miami.
Either way, we're both surprised and delighted by Therapy's decision to strip. Because it epitomizes a canny and quintessentially 305 approach to survival.
Oh, and yes, there will be a "Soft Opening." Don't miss it.
Therapy's Soft Opening. Presented by Cupid's Miami. Friday and Saturday, September 6 and 7. Therapy Miami, 60 NE 11th St., Miami. Open bar and free admission from 9 p.m. to 11. Call 305-316-7150.
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