The nightclub came alive at night with drag, Punk, and New Wave shows, while the restaurant side hosted meetings of groups and organizations both straight and gay. Disco Le Café had its grand opening on October 20, 1983. Her partners in this venture were noted casino designer Don Schmitt, entertainer Breck Wall, and businessman Warren Fulbright. When Marge lost the Gipsy in 1983, she resurrected Le Café as Disco Le Café Bar and Restaurant in the old Country Rebel Steakhouse at 2710 E. A second fire on completely gutted the empty building.įor the next five years Marge operated a number of other gay bars in Las Vegas including the Other Place at 5410 Paradise Road and the Village Station, which became the Gipsy in 1981.
There were rumors, too, that Marge had burned her own club, although at the time of the fire she had failed to update her insurance and lost everything.
That owner was Camille Castro, who had sold Le Bistro to Marge, left the country, then returned in 1975 to open a new bar and disco in direct competition with Le Café. It was never determined beyond doubt who burned Marge's club, although rumor in the gay community had it that she was burned out by the owner of a bar down the street at 4310 Paradise Road called Prelude. Marge was in demand as a lecturer on gay people and gay life and addressed groups at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and Nellis Air Force Base. (Read a 1977 eyewitness account of Le Café.) Fireīut the good times ended on Augwhen Le Café was torched. It was Marge and friends and employees from Le Café who founded the first Las Vegas chapter of the National Organization for Women in 1971 and who wrested control of the Clark County Democratic Party from the Mormon Church in the mid-1970s. Openly gay herself, Marge appeared on a local NBC television news show in 1976, taped in the living room of her own house, and she was the contact for a two-part Las Vegas Review-Journal series on gay people in Las Vegas in 1977. Gay Notes from Le Caféwas the first gay publication in Las Vegas. It was through Marge Jacques and Le Café that the Las Vegas gay community first found its voice. The club's reputation spread around the world and throughout the 1970s Le Café was frequented by such entertainers as Liberace, Joan Rivers, Shirley Maclaine, Rip Taylor and Paul Lynde, Bobbie Gentry, Debbie Reynolds, Sammy Davis, Jr.-even Milton Berle. The club's motto, printed on matchbooks and t-shirts, was "Glitter and Be Gay at Le Café!" a motto which perfectly reflected 1970s gay disco glamour. Both Maxine's and the Red Barn, two other gay bars operating at the time, were low-key and closeted-but Le Café was gay out loud. Marge's club was unique because she opened it publicly as a gay bar, which had never been done in Las Vegas before. Marge obtained a liquor license, bought the Club de Paris, changed the name to Le Café, and held a grand opening on January 16, 1970. Marge had worked as a cocktail waitress at the Sands Hotel and was at the Golden Nugget during the late 1960s when Las Vegas was forced to integrate the casino industry first by hiring black dealers, then by hiring women dealers and she had been in the forefront of both fights. Las Vegas food critic Fedora Bontempi frequently reviewed Le Bistro in her column in Panoramamagazine noting that it was the first and the only authentic French restaurant in Las Vegas.īy late 1969 both Le Bistro and the Club de Paris were failing when Marge Jacques became interested in running the bar. Betty Grable, a Las Vegas resident at the time, often hosted parties at Le Bistro, and the cast of Boys in the Band, performing at Caesars Palace during the summer of 1969, gathered at Le Bistro. When the revue went down, Camille, bankrolled by Riddle, stayed on to open her restaurant.Ĭlub de Paris and Le Bistro held their grand opening on Januand quickly became a favorite hangout for Las Vegas' gay community, particularly the show crowd from the Strip. Camille was also associated with a celebrated Parisian lesbian bar called the Crazy Horse and she came to Las Vegas from Paris as the lighting engineer when Caesars Palace imported a show called the Crazy Horse Revue. Louis in Paris among whose famous clientele were two well-known Las Vegans: Dunes Hotel owner Major Riddle and Line Renaud, star of the Dunes' Casino de Paris production. Camille had owned La Manche a Gigot restaurant on the Isle St. In November 1968 Camille Castro, a stylish and flamboyant European lesbian, opened Le Bistro French restaurant in the Black Magic, known by then as the Club de Paris.