Effex Nightclub

Mortgaging a house to open on Pride

It wasn't a standard business plan: on the Pride weekend of June 2010, Carri Phillis and two partners transformed a downtown Albuquerque building on Central Avenue of the historic Route 66 into a nightclub to give the LGBTQ+ scene back a dance floor space that the city had lost. Phillis even mortgaged her home to turn on the lights. In a few months, Effex Nightclub established itself as the great gay club of New Mexico, an urban-scale format in a downtown area where such venues tended to disappear.

Three floors, three booths, one same night

The venue is read vertically. Downstairs, the Main Room concentrates the main dance floor, high industrial-style ceilings, lasers, LED lighting, and elevated VIP areas facing the stage. On the middle level, the Lounge functions as a viewpoint over the dance floor, with its own bar and a different sound atmosphere. Upstairs, the Patio/Rooftop is an open-air terrace with an independent booth, full bar, and views of downtown. Each floor has its booth and its bar: it is not a decorative annex, but a club that can open all three levels at once, as happens on Pride nights.

House on the rooftop, touring bass on the dance floor

Electronic music is not an extra. Relentless Beats has brought bass and EDM headliners to the room—Tape B, Lil Texas, Rommii, and earlier Kyau & Albert or Keys N Krates—while the rooftop sustains We House Fridays, a house line with guests. On Fridays, FEELS relies on residents like Stitch and Aquattro; on Saturdays, Elevate Saturdays revolves around Mali, Spunty Hicks, and Devin. The door tone changes depending on the night, with many club events labeled as 21+, and the venue offers VIP tables with express entry.

The gastrobar next door and 474 days in the dark

In 2016, Side Effex was born, the adjacent gastropub with which Phillis sought an "all-in-one" in the heart of downtown: beer, food, and a bridge to the nightclub. The pandemic turned off the venue for 474 days; the lights returned on July 2, 2021, after repurposing dead corners and with almost the entire staff returning. Today the official pulse is Thursday to Saturday, from 9:00 PM to 2:00 AM, with a calendar that mixes Pride, rooftop house, and touring DJs. It remains, in downtown Albuquerque, the physical container where the LGBTQ+ nightlife and the electronic dance floor share the same building.