MJQ Dance Club’s New Home is a Familiar Hellscape | Eater Atlanta
"Now relocated to Underground Atlanta, the club’s redesign leans hard into a playful sci‑fi aesthetic — think a spaceship, an alien inside a pod, and the moody glow of neon lights — while consciously stewarding the subterranean history of the space that once housed Dante’s Down the Hatch. Co‑owners Ryan Purcell and Ryan Murphy used the move to create multiple rooms for dancing and bars with affordable drinks and food, including a Buford Highway–inspired bodega stocked with funky snacks like wasabi and yakitori‑flavored chips, canned boba tea, and Pocky. Patrons can still expect the familiar cheap beer and well drinks, plus new offerings: boozy slushies and craft cocktails like a Mai Tai and the “WowBobWow,” (a Twin Peaks reference) a spicy concoction of habanero and jalapeño infused tequila with triple sec, lime, and orange juice brought over from the Bookhouse Pub. On the venue’s purpose and audience Purcell is explicit: “It was built for the staff and it was built for the people that have been coming there. We’ve got 30 years of experience of what people want from MJQ, not what they want from a nightclub, specifically, what they want from MJQ,” says Purcell. He also describes the visual concept and Easter eggs: “It’s got this sea ship, sitting at a dock, surrounded by water and has crocodiles. Now we’ve gone from a sea ship to a spaceship, and instead of a pier or a dock, we are now at a docking bay where the ship is now sitting in these thunder, lightning clouds that surround the space. I don’t know if anyone noticed, but I even had a crocodile head and put it in the clouds just to have some fun with it,” he says — a nod to Dante’s former pirate‑ship styling and the late owner Dante Stephensen’s pet crocodile, Pinocchio. The summary also preserves the club’s origin story and local cultural role: the original venue opened in 1994 behind an unmarked door in the basement of the Ponce de Leon Hotel (now the Wylie Hotel) by George Chang, moved in 1997 to the former Lou’s Blues Revue space where it built a loyal following via weekly DJ nights and snapshot‑driven internet lore (MySpace era events like “Sloppy Seconds” and “Fuck Yesss”), and weathered neighborhood change after Ponce City Market’s rise. After announcing the Ponce closure in late 2022, the owners were approached about Underground Atlanta — “She was like, ‘come down, take a look. Just tour the space. I think that this is a great place for you,’” says Purcell — and reimagined the club without trying to simply replicate the green shed. The new location opened January 22, with a tearful goodbye to the former green‑shed home on January 25, and the venue now operates as a flagship entertainment spot under the neon “No Requests, Y’all” sign while tying into and celebrating the layered history of the site." - Caroline Eubanks
