REVIEW

HOLDING A NOTE (continued)
Chicago magazine
by Marcia Froelke Coburn

The money was lavish at the Gaslight Clubs ("Some nights I'd take home $700 in tips," she says), so Walker felt financially stable. When she turned 24, her emotional life picked up as well. She met a tradesman-rehabber and was ready to start a family, but the idea of "the paperwork of marriage" held little appeal. "I added two years to my career plan for my first child," she says. Two years later, she had a second son, so that added four years total. During that time, she and her partner worked at buying and renovating buildings in Old Town.

When she was 28, she went back to the Gaslight Clubs with a cabaret act of her own. "It was me with five sleazy kick-turn girls behind me," she says. "For the Gaslight crowd, that was showtime!" Soon after, Walker began to look around for her own place. She married her longtime partner,k had a third child, and scouted real-estate possibilities. When the Domino Lounge, a blue humor and insult club at Walton and State, went on the market, Walker bought it. "We opened in 1989, when I was 34" she says.

"So I was on target for my plan. I painted the walls black, moved the stage around, and tried to create a smaller version of Gaslight. I used an all-female, very glamourous wait staff; everyone had to sing, and we had props and music revues and all the shtick." The conventioneers stayed away in droves.

"The clientele I thought I could bring over didn't come." For one thing, the location of Walker's club wasn't very appealing. On East Walton at that time, ladies of the night strolled the sidewalks. "Other than the women using the cars out in front, there was ample parking around here then," she remembers with a laugh.

Walker changed her concept. She went from a glamour lounge to a clubhouse atmosphere. Out went the singing waitresses, and in came a small stage with musical acts. It took several months, but the Underground Wonder Bar found its clientele. Then, almost one year to the day after the club opened, Walker was served onstage with divorce papers.