CHAPTER 107

Author: I don’t know if you remember this, but there was a meeting between the comedians and the club owners.

Noam: Yeah, I remember. At the Friars Club.

Author: Yes, and so some of the comedians told me that at one point you said … You were talking about the risk that the Comedy Cellar takes, that of course you make money, but you always take a lot of the risk. For example, if the club’s closed for the weekend due to bad weather you said you’d be missing out on … And nobody remembers what the amount was but they were all like, ‘What? You make that?’ They were shocked that you made that much money in a weekend. Does that ring a bell at all?

Noam: No, but it sounds like me, because, first of all, these guys are unbelievable. It is simple arithmetic. Any of the Jewish comedians could have told you exactly what I was making on a weekend, because you know how many seats there are, you know how much the cover charge is, and you know how much a drink is, so on the back of a matchbook anybody, anybody, a high school kid, a grammar school kid, could come up with a pretty good estimation of what the club takes in. What they don’t have any idea of is the expenses. What’s the rent? What’s the electricity? What’s the insurance? What’s the payroll? What’s the mortgage? I mean, that they have no idea about, but the fact that whatever the number was that … The Comedy Cellar had a $10 cover charge at the time, times a hundred seats, let’s say times three shows on a Friday and four shows on a Saturday, I think that’s what it was, plus maybe $20 a person in drinks. Add it up. That’s what we were taking in.

Author: I think someone said $30k or something like that?

Noam: In a weekend? Between Friday and Saturday night? No, I think it would be a little less than that. I think it would have been more like $25,000 between the two nights in 2004. But that’s gross and that includes sales tax by the way. It’s a meaningless number. I do remember other things about the meeting that I pointed out to them, that I thought that their whole calculation was … I don’t remember what word I used, but I’m trying to put a word on it now for what my intention was. That it was naive, in the sense that Gotham has three-hundred-and-fifty seats or something. We have a hundred seats. We’re using six or seven comics a night. Other places are using two or three comics a night. So the overall … They were comparing spot pay rather than comparing the overall budget for comedy. And then, even further, the overall budget for comedy as a percentage of the gross of that particular room. Almost like comparing a guy who pays $2,000 rent to a guy who pays $20,000 dollars rent without talking about the fact that yeah, but his place is twice as big, his location is better, whatever. So we were not only paying the most for a spot but we were by far using the most comedians. And I think I remember saying at the meeting, ‘Look, would you prefer I use fewer comedians?’ And everyone was like, ‘No, no, no.’ They didn’t want that. So we felt that even at lower pay we were way superior to the other clubs because we were paying much more in absolute dollars and we had many fewer seats. You follow me, right? So this was my recollection, and I think when I said all that, these are smart guys, the comedians, I think most of them said, ‘Oh yeah, he has a point, we still want more money.’