Skip to content
Entertainment
Link copied to clipboard

Forget the hills-the sound of music is coming from Atlantic City's T Street

The latest step in Atlantic City’s ongoing transformation from gambling mecca to something-for-everyone resort is The Playground

T Street at the Playground is the brainchild of Bart Blatstein's trip to Austin's Sixth Street and Nashville's Music Row, both heavy on music, bars and customers. (Nick Valinote)
T Street at the Playground is the brainchild of Bart Blatstein's trip to Austin's Sixth Street and Nashville's Music Row, both heavy on music, bars and customers. (Nick Valinote)Read moreNick Valinote

If you are a Master-of-the-Universe developer like Philly's Bart Blatstein, it's nothing to embark on a spur-of-the-moment jaunt to Nashville and Austin, Texas, and return from the two-night westward excursion with a crystalized concept for a long-struggling Atlantic City property you recently acquired.

That, in a nutshell, is the story of T Street, the first phase of The Playground, the ocean-straddling entertainment complex that Blatstein and his partner, acclaimed casino architect Paul Steelman, believe represents a crucial step forward in Atlantic City's post-casino-industry-collapse era. It's located on the site of what was most recently the failed Pier Shops at Caesars, a mostly high-end shopping mall that was a victim of, among other things, Atlantic City's devastation from legal gambling in neighboring states.

T Street is the linchpin of Blatstein's master plan for The Playground to be a multifaceted hangout for, primarily, the 21-45 set. It's comprised of six bars and a 2,000-capacity music hall.

While the latter, dubbed 39N, is open sporadically for bigger-name (and ticketed) acts (like jump-'n'-jivers Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, who perform July 23), five of the six bars that bridge the Playground's first-floor retail area and 39N offer drinks, food and live music seven days a week. The other, Monkey Bar, doesn't provide musical entertainment.

Also open is the Riviera beer garden, an indoor/outdoor lounge on the ocean end of the pier. It is so-named because Blatstein and Steelman hauled away five tractor-trailers' worth of furnishings - including a huge, red neon "Riviera" sign - from the recently closed Riviera casino on the Las Vegas Strip.

The late fall will see the opening of a bowling alley/bar/restaurant on the second level and a sprawling sports bar on the third floor. Next summer, a swimming-pool/beach-bar area is scheduled to debut.

Filling a void

There were two reasons Blatstein, who is credited with the transformation of Northern Liberties from post-apocalyptic horror-scape to one of the city's hippest neighborhoods, chose to make his property so music-centric. One, he said, was simply his love of same.

"And number two . . . What can I do to that 500,000-square-foot pier that I can turn it around quickly and get a lot of attention?

"So, I love 6th Street in Austin [Texas], and Beale Street in Memphis and [Music Row in] Nashville, and I felt something like that was missing in Atlantic City."

Incidentally, "quickly" is a bit of an understatement; the entire T Street project was completed in 10 weeks.

Blatstein already had the germ of the idea when he invited his son, Ryan, who works for him, on the impromptu getaway. "It just came to me, and it was, 'Let's go and look at it,' " he recalled.

"We went from bar to bar in Nashville, then we flew to Austin and went from bar to bar there, and just had a ball taking it all in."

Blatstein added that the idea of a multi-venue music destination was also inspired by what he saw as a void that begged to be filled. "I think there was something missing in-between," he offered. "It's either going to a large room at a casino to see a concert, or nothing."

When reminded that there are numerous nightclubs and, in the summer, some outdoor saloons, Blatstein dismissed their formats. Beach bars, he noted, "play loud, electronic music. It's not live music. I wanted to create an intimate setting for bands to play in and for people to enjoy it."

Sounds abound

The musical menu is eclectic. On any given evening, one can hear such genres as country, reggae, acoustic rock, jazz, classic rock and Irish music. However, an unscientific survey suggested that the most popular attractions are the dueling pianists who perform (mostly requests) inside the bar called Bo's.

On a recent Thursday night, the crowd taking in the performances by ivory-ticklers/vocalists Joe Marchetti and Tony DeCarolis (who appear Sunday through Tuesday and Thursday) easily exceeded the combined attendance at all the other bars. This is especially noteworthy because the duo's repertoire emphasizes music from the 1950s,'60s and '70s, while Blatstein has identified people 21 to 45 as his primary demographic targets.

Culinary heavyweight

Among the Pier Shops' tenants still doing business at The Playground are branches of two of Philly uber-restaurateur Stephen Starr's most popular eateries, Buddakan and The Continental (both on the third level). But on T Street, another local dining titan, Jose Garces, rules the roost. The former "Iron Chef" has created a bar-type menu (Mexican pizzas, burgers, wings, specialty french fries) offered in all of the clubs.

Blatstein obviously could have invited Starr to join his T Street posse; he likely also could have had his pick of any other of the region's superstar stove-jockeys. But, he insisted, there was never any deliberation. "Jose is a friend of mine," he said, "and I thought, 'Why not?' He had done a wonderful job at Revel [where he ran three restaurants and a food truck], so he already had a crew down there. It seemed like a perfect fit."

Another of the myriad problems that sank The Pier Shops was the lack of dedicated parking. Visitors who weren't already in AyCee generally had to park in the Caesars Atlantic City self-park garage. The distance between there and The Playground - even walking through the casino - is several city blocks. But The Playground has initiated valet parking on a surface lot at the foot of Missouri Avenue (on which cars land when the Atlantic City Expressway ends), just yards from the Boardwalk.

Early reviews

At an April press conference, Blatstein confidently proclaimed, "This place can't fail. It won't fail. This is going to be the greatest success of my career." Whether it is or not clearly remains to be seen.

On the one hand, not everyone has been impressed with The Playground: A recent PhillyMag.com review was so harsh that one almost expected it to suggest that Blatstein is an ISIS commander.

But then there are folks like Katharine Bezak and her dad, Troy, of Little Egg Harbor, N.J., who recently made their first visit.

Katharine, 21, favorably compared The Playground to Bourbon Street, in New Orleans, and Philly's own South Street.

"This is a really, really nice touch for Atlantic City," she said, "because [The Pier Shops] was only expensive shops before. Now you're bringing in a whole new type of audience."

Troy, 45, was likewise generous in his praise.

"I think that they're on to the right idea," he said. "People have known for a long time that casinos aren't cutting it in Atlantic City and they needed to diversify. The addition of places like this . . . I think may be the beginning of a renaissance in Atlantic City."

5 p.m. to 2 a.m. daily (live music 8 to midnight), $10 cover charge after 10 p.m., playgroundpierac.com