As I walked through the crowd at Johann Sfaellos' new club, the first thing that caught my attention was the half-naked guy laid out on a table with sushi covering his sculpted chest. Hard to miss.
In Japan, the tradition of body sushi usually calls for a woman. Sfaellos thought it would be more fun with a man. After 15 years in the downtown Minneapolis club scene, Sfaellos still likes to do things a little differently.
The club, 400 Soundbar, is actually a sequel to his 414 Soundbar, which closed in November. It is twice the size, which means he has twice the space to fill with his idiosyncratic tendencies.
There are Siamese fighting fish in the VIP booths. The walls are filled with original art (a portrait of a nude redhead is priced at $2,500). No food will be served, but there's a glass dining-room table by the dance floor. I guess it's all in the details.
Sfaellos, 44, has been involved with three clubs on this block, across the street from Target Field. After selling the Lounge in 2005, he helped open Visage here. He left soon afterward, and opened 414 Soundbar a couple of doors down. Last fall, his landlord took Sfaellos to court for unpaid rent. A lot of finger-pointing followed. Now he and partner Enrique Delgado are back on the block.
A couple of days later, Sfaellos sat at that dining room table and surveyed what he had created -- red columns with stencil art outlined the dance floor, glistening chandeliers overhead, heavy drapery everywhere.
"This is sexy," he said in his thick Greek accent.
To create some intimacy in the 10,000-square-foot space, he's cut Soundbar into three distinct rooms, two with Russian and Asian themes. "I call it the Silk Crossroads," he said, referring to the network of trade routes that once crisscrossed Asia.
