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Clermont Lounge entrenched in quirky Atlanta history

One day we woke up in a Poncey-Highlands without a Murder KrogerWithout a Masquerade. And without a Clermont Lounge. Until this weekend.

Because it's the construction project that feels like it's been going on...and on... and on. But, really, you're just impatient.

ATLANTA -- Part strip club, part tourist attraction, part landmark, always a survivor. The Clermont Lounge is back.

Development has followed the Atlanta Beltline like rats after the Pied Piper. Condos sprang up from the concrete like kudzu, driving up prices, giving birth to the Fulton County tax revolt.

Then, one day we woke up in a Poncey-Highlands without a Murder Kroger. Without a Masquerade. And without a Clermont Lounge.

Until this weekend.

Clermont Lounge is back. It’s like a beloved cockroach that just keeps coming back.

“We had one air conditioner that did the whole building, but it didn't do the whole building. It stopped when you got so many people in,” co-owner Kathi Martin laughed. “And everybody came out sweaty, but I think that was part of the mystique. You were at the Clermont if you went home soaking wet.”

Over the years, those sweaty customers included Robert De Niro, Morgan Freeman, Metallica, Woody Harrelson, Jennifer Lawrence, and an endless stream of bachelor parties. Some famous, most just regular Atlanta folks.

While the Lounge flourished by developing a cult-like following, the hotel above them crumbled into neglect. On Jan. 1, the lounge closed.

“The hotel is doing some remodeling. And they were doing some work to where we couldn't be open with because of the construction above us it would all come down on our heads,” Martin explained.

The remodeling of the Clermont Lounge itself was mostly to bring it up to code. The steps near the bathrooms known to cause more than a few drinkers to stumble have been taken out. The entire layout is cleaner, wider, more open to make it handicapped accessible.

And everywhere, there are touches of the past. The memories since the club opened in 1996 scattered across the walls and tucked into little corners. Check out the photos from inside the lounge just days before it’s slated to open.

As the neighborhood changes around it, the Lounge stays mostly the same. Always surviving.

Even Martin can’t explain it.

“I don’t know how we did it, but we did,” she said. That survival has earned it a special, and admittedly odd, place in the hearts of long time Atlanta residents.

Welcome back, Clermont Lounge (assuming you pass the inspection later this week). (UPDATE: It didn't.)

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