Atlantic City a city at the top of the next tier in entertainment destinations –– and the nightlife scene there is finding a customer who has realized and enjoyed the secret luxuries of being a big fish in a small pond. With the options in New Jersey today, the East Coast is influencing trends and sales like never before.
    Capitalizing on this more than any other, perhaps, is MIXX located at The Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa. The décor is a fusion of Latin and Asian elements, and the clientele is America’s jet-setting socialite who has learned that –– from service to DJs to the drink list –– Mixx envelops a guest in all that it means to be a VIP.

By The Bottle
    Bottle service looms like a golden shadow over every aspect of a night in Mixx –– whether a person goes in to have bottle service or not. It is impossible to escape the effect the inexhaustible trend has on the club. With more than 47 tables and five additional private rooms devoted to the concept, 50 percent of the 700-person capacity space is allotted to bottle patrons.
    Selling more than 150 bottles on average to private tables each evening, this selective service is big business for the management, and it is the factor that distinguishes Mixx as one of the most discerning spots to sip something in Atlantic City and in America.
    “As we introduced bottle service to the market, we found that the customer craved the experience,” says Eric Millstein, director of nightlife and marketing for Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa. “The only place you could get it was in New York, Vegas or Miami, and there were enough of these intelligent nightlife-goers who didn’t always want to go to New York or get on a plane to Miami. They knew what was going on in the industry, but weren’t able to get it.
    “So, as we provided an elevated level of service with bottle service and fresh cocktails and a standard of service with an attentive bartender that was focused on service and the customer, we found that the more knowledge we gave the customer, the more they desired. We continually strive to keep that standard elevated and relevant in the business and in the industry.”
    While reading this, some might think a fun night in Mixx only comes at the highest of costs, but the presentation of bottle service actually pulls in patrons who find the atmosphere created to their benefit for the mere price of the door.
    “It is a really different experience inside,” Director of Nightlife Operations for Borgata Jonathan Spadafora says. “Some people who are coming in general admission don’t have any interest in doing bottle service, but they like being in the effect of a bottle service nightclub. As people travel more and more, they expect that Vegas level that they had at, say, Body English, and they don’t care where they are. People now leave Mixx, and they compare it to places like Pink Elephant and Body English and JET.”

Extreme Service
    The value of the $385 price tag attached to a bottle service bottle of Patrón or the $310 tag for a bottle of Knob Creek is not lost on Mixx management as it is in many establishments across the country, and there is no sense inside that handing over the credit card for a bottle listed at 300 percent mark-up is simply expected.
Within the price at Mixx, customers are invited to lounge amongst state-of-the-art stereo, exotic fabrics, top DJ talent, perfection in cocktail form and, most importantly, sovereign-styled service. Fighting to make their nightclub a top-of-mind choice amongst the billion-dollar venues in the larger cities, the management at Mixx knows this is the path to success.

    “We do an audition process,” Mixx Manager Amanda Senoff says of hiring staff. “Not only do we look at their skills and their individuality, but we also rate them –– on their confidence, their posture, their poise, their physical attractiveness, even whether they are physically fit. It is a three-part series. The first is the confidence, poise and posture. The second is a skills part, where you are serving panel of judges, and then the third is a written exam that you need to pass to become eligible for hire.”
    Out of 10,000 applicants, all vying for the full benefits, four weeks paid vacation and comprehensive pay before tip-out, only 93 made Borgata’s cut.
    The job description involves justifying the high rates of bottle service through creating a perfect evening for every customer. Back of the house servers change the ice in the ice buckets every 15 minutes, fresh-squeezed juice is mandatory in every cocktail and over-staffing prevents customers from watching a cocktail waitress break into a sprint when things get busy.
    “When you are doing bottle service, and it is so expensive, our thought on it is everything should be perfect,” Spadafora says. “A customer should feel like a rock star. Good service is having everything available and ready and not making someone feel like you are bending over backwards to do it. For instance, we replace every juice carafe every 15 minutes, so your fresh orange juice never separates during the night. Those are the little things that make it great.
    “I think when people go to nightclubs, they kind of get cheated sometimes. They are given a poorly made cocktail in a really bad glass or plastic cup (even worse) with a piece of rotten fruit, and then they pay exorbitant nightclub pricing for it.
“We hold our staff to a much higher standard. We use fresh sweet and sour in all of our Margaritas, we have nice glassware and a cocktail that you can be proud of in a cocktail lounge –– but we are serving them in a nightclub.”

Breaking the Sound Barrier
    With enough bottle service space to host a whole slew of celebrities at once and a staff that must arrive on the other side of a hiring process West Point might envy, it is no surprise that Borgata’s Mixx is becoming a destination for DJ talent and high-profile promoters, as well. From cabaret shows to acrobatics to choreographed dancers who must re-audition to retain their employee status every few months, Mixx’s level of entertainment is the best of what Borgata and Atlantic City has to offer.
    “Mixx has been branded as a place that is not scared to do events, and to go after a large nightlife demographic,” Millstein says. “We have had DJ AM numerous times. We had Tiesto here last year, Junior Vasquez, Paul Oakenfold … DJ Scribble is one of our residents. Mixx is absolutely a destination. People come because of what we do, what we have been able to produce and how we have been able to produce it.”

Enter Atlantic City
    Standing in a spotlight all its own, Mixx is not chasing after the wealthy, West Chelsea, New York scene or desperately trying to imitate the icons of The Strip in Las Vegas. The focus is –– and always has been –– offering superiority in every level of club operation and waiting for the trendsetters to come to them. It is working, and the profits are high for the entire city.
    “I like to think that since the inception of Mixx, we have created a nightlife buzz around Atlantic City that not only has been very fruitful for Borgata and Mixx but for the other nightlife venues, as well,” Millstein says. “Where as there were only one or two spots before, now we are able to offer a whole nightlife department within Borgata and increase the options. It has definitely made Atlantic City more of a relevant destination as far as nightlife entertainment.”                                          NCB