Qua

Enough is enough!
I have had it with these monkey fighting sharks on this Monday to Friday plane.
OH– it’s closed? Good. Because the music sucked and the drinks were too expensive. Who cares if you danced on sharks. This was just too cheesy to be a real Sodom or Gomorrah.

CLOSED but reopened as Hyde. Sharks still gone. Damn you PETA weirdo’s. Still fun though. Gay but open to all the rest of us ;)

Qua has potential. When I went, the door guy was nice and welcomed me and Missy B. in. Well, actually, he asked us if we were part of the group that entered just ahead of us and I said, «Yeah, we’re with them!» and then he asked what the occasion was and I said «Uh, I don’t know,» laughed, and he let us pass.
I liked the first room with the faux waterfalls and indoor creek. Walking through to the infamous shark-​tank dance floor room, I was surprised, but not really, how small the dance floor was, and how much real estate was lost to the semi-​private, big couch/​bed, cubby areas.
Not really surprised that the dance floor was only a small portion of the «dance club,» since that seems to be the trend at clubs these days: less dance floor, more space for people to watch other people dancing while standing around getting shitfaced. Or lay around on couch/​bed things and get shitfaced.
Anyway, there were no sharks the night we went, and they played two bad songs in a row, so we left without getting drinks. It took longer to get out than to get in, since a bunch of mouth-​breathers were blocking the exit just standing there, until I shouted, «Get out the way!»
I’m not sure where the sharks went, but it may be cooler to have aquatic fiber-​optics stuff in there than sharks. Oh, and better music. And less dumb-​asses blocking major egresses.

Well I’m sad the sharks are gone. The water’s still there so why aren’t there at least fish??? I’d just stand on top of them and watch them the whole time, so maybe it’s a good thing they’re gone.
Anyway, this place was very awesome, but not many people were there. I went around 11 or 12 on a Friday night and there were just a few people around. Maybe it picks up later.
The guys at the door were really funny and entertaining. They told the bartender to give us free drinks so my friend and I were pretty happy. We didn’t stay too long though, it was very dark and there weren’t many people. It seemed like a fun place though! I’d definitely be back just because of the friendly staff.
They should at least put fake fish in there… I’d be happy with that

So, I used to really like this place. I would have said a 4 last year. These days though…
1. Door guys, this is not a Vegas club, we are in Austin. Now I don’t ever ever ever have problems places, except here. Flip flops and shorts are Austin staples, it is 10 000 000 degrees out, and its WEDNESDAY! I shouldn’t have to use the 4 girls with me as leverage as to why I should be allowed.
2. Shark tank was the
, no sharks, no nothing now. Whats the point of the dance floor? At least add some floaties in there or something. Disappointing.
3. Is it just me or are those mini/​skinny glasses very small? I would hope for 8.5 jack and coke I would get something more then a small glass full of ice with a splash of jack.
4. There seems to be a new stripper pole on the dance floor, or I have just missed it every time. This seems to be the conjugating area for all women 50+ (nothing wrong with that, but don’t show your moves on it)
Those are just a few reasons I have come to not really like Qua these days.
Will say the bartenders have always been very nice, and quick with service. Most likely b/​c there are only ever 15 people tops in there now a days.
It is a good place if you have a group of girls who want to dance and not get mauled. That is one advantage of it, dance floor is spacious and the DJ is usually pretty good. Other then that though, Ill pass.

Wow, this place was pretty impressive… a sleek lounge and club that’s prefect or hanging-​out with friends. There’s a ton of space and it was very nice with the open air — perfect on those warm nights.
When I was there no one else was around, unfortunately, but I can imagine it being very cool.

My first thought on entering QUA with 4 young gorgeous girls I am with… WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING HERE! I am to damn old for this place… how did I get talked into this! This being said, The door guy was in love with one of my counterparts so he put us at a table in the front with free bottles of alcohol and our own personal waitress/​bartender. I thought then… OK. FREE booze. I can deal.
This place is definitely your typical college meat market dance club. Pretty cool inside. Every single bartender, waitress, door guy etc. were EXTREMELY nice and helpful. We got pretty wild and never got kicked out, so with all said, they deserve a solid 4 stars.

This place is so awful that they can’t seem to keep the sharks alive. Chances are that even though this place is empty and you make the foolish mistake of entering you’ll still attract a flock of guys armed with roofies, Malibu and groping hands. Stay clear.

I went to QUA with 3 friends during SXSW. We had already visited a few bars and a hookah lounge earlier in the evening when it was decided that we wanted to go dancing.
Now, I’m not the dancing type, but I was promised sharks in the dance floor, which sounded interesting and was enough to entice me to check it out. However, we arrived to find no sharks in the dance floor that night… just an empty aquarium. My heart was broken, but it was quickly mended when I fell in love with every. single. song. that the DJ played. Seriously, the music was that good. My throat hurt the next day from singing along to every song at the top of my lungs.
One of the girls at the bar was even kind enough to hold our bags behind the bar, and she made us describe the contents of our bags upon retrieval to make sure we were the true owners of said stuff.
As far as dancing goes, I’d say this place is A-​OK. Next time I’m in Austin, though, there better be sharks, or there will be hell to pay.

I came here to check out the sharks. But… where were the sharks!!! Nowhere to be seen.
I like the little tables outside, but the crowd was too weird for my taste.

Let me get this out of the way first:
Shark tank dance floor — sweet.
Not-​so-​Austin atmosphere — cool.
Adult beverages — strong.
Now, the meat of the review:
To begin, their website is full of LIES! «There is never a cover charge at QUA, however a fashionable /​business attire dress code is always in effect.»
Then why, Qua, did it cost me and my husband $ 5 each to get in your hallowed doors? I mean, just to have our physical bodies exist on your premises put us TEN FREAKING DOLLARS in the hole. Ouch. Listen, Qua, its downtown Austin on a Friday night, I guarantee I could have flung my martini’s olive out the door and hit a club that was not charging cover.
The next logical step upon entering a club is, of course, ordering drinks. The bartender made them and then asked if we wanted to start a tab. Normally, we would, but for some reason instincts told us to just go on and pay for them now. «Okay, that’ll be $ 18.»
WHHHATTT? The math is being done in my head: $ 10 cover + ($ 9 x 2drinks) + $ 2 tip = $ 30! I’ve been inside this nearly empty club (before 9pm, mind you) and I’ve blown $ 30 before even having one sip?! Two words — rip off.
The rest of my time at Qua just kind of fizzled out from there. A group of friends and us grabbed a booth and sat around talking, no one really wanting to get another round after clearly being nearly robbed by this place. An unattractive waitress with a cup-​size about 3 cups larger than her dress fit continued to annoy us and ask us if we needed bottle service. Um, honey, if the price ain’t listed — I ain’t buyin’!
No plans on returning unless I am on some 65-​year old millionaire’s tab. And even then, I would be hesitant.

«Oh god, the old people are starting to boogie.» That statement pretty much summed up our experience here. My dear friend suggested this as a first stop on a late Thursday night out. Love her and I know she had the best of intentions… but oh my no. When you first walk in, you think «hey, this place KINDA has potential” — fairly pretty décor, with lots of glass, aquariums, and I really liked looking at the small sharks swimming in the giant tank UNDER the dance floor. But that’s where the fun stops. First off, the DJ was just awful and the sound system sucked. He was playing some of the crappiest music I have heard in any club or bar. The bartenders were pretty indifferent. There was really no seating except for some pretentious-​looking VIP booths– really, you expect people to pay for a table and bottle service in THIS place? And then you had the people (although not many, which says something). Yikes. Along with a few of the usual «classy» young ladies and the a-​holes following them, you had a disturbing number of old people. To use a patented Travis-​phrase, many of these people also came «straight out of Darwin’s waiting room». And they were dancing… My friends and I gaped at each other in horror, gulped down a single round of beers, then bolted. Thank god we didn’t pay cover for that freak show.

I’d review the inside of Qua, which I tried to visit about a year ago with a large, well-​off group of friends, but I’m forced to review the street view instead because my (leather, 1 inch heel) shoes ‘weren’t high enough’. Screw my stress fracture! I should have worn taller shoes, though I don’t think I could have hobbled forward at that point without falling over in crippling pain. Other reasons I was probably denied access by the rather inhospitable bouncer: I was only showing a quarter of my potential cleavage, I wear glasses and I wasn’t skinny enough for the door bouncer’s taste. Be warned.
What fascinates me about the rest of the reviews is the accounts of other large parties being denied for no particularly good reason. Does this club care to make money, or is the idea to deny business for some sort of Producers-​style money making scheme? Who is the clientele for this place?

«Knock knock»
«Who’s there?»
«Slutty girls!»
«Slutty girls who?»
«Slutty girls dancing on a shark tank!»
Get it? Me neither, but one star for hilarity!

If I could give this place zero stars I would.
I went there tonight and saw TWO dead sharks in the aquarium/​dance floor.
It was my first time here, a friend took me and two others who had never been. It was utterly disgusting and I will never be back. I hope this place goes out of business soon.

Other really good ideas:
Filling a blimp full of hydrogen (because gasoline isn’t lighter than air) and having people cruise it around pointy structures
Creating the Aryan super-​race
Milli Vanilli
Filling the world’s largest boat with really important people (including Leonardo DiCaprio and Bill Paxton) and cruising it through pointy-​ice infested waters
Pretending to be intellectually superior while hiding behind internet talk threads
Supporting your family with Amway, Tupperware, Herbalife, Avon, Mary Kay, or Hello Kitty.
New Coke
Creed
Cold fusion
Oklahoma
Viagra for dogs
Making a brief cameo on «To Catch a Predator»
Marrying Elizabeth Taylor or Bobby Brown
Opening a club in Vegas called «Here» where you dance on top of the glass cage from Silence of the Lambs filled with Matthew McConaughey, Sandra Bullock, Willie Nelson, Leslie, and Clarksville’s «thong guy»

Is this place making any money? First I get turned away for my shoes. I go back to my car… a block away. change shoes and come back.
Then my friend, who has an out of state license, is asked for an additional form of identification, she asks if a credit card is acceptable and the door man says, don’t you have a passport? Who the eff carries a passport on downtown besides people from out of the country? Also he was going to let her in the first time until he saw my shoes. She’s been there before with her out of state ID as well.
The last time I was at this bar, I ordered 2 Shiner’s on a CC tab. I go back to close out with cash, and I get hell for opening a tab to begin with if I was just going to pay cash (I didn’t know I was only going to drink 2 and I only had like $ 8). He then comes back with my «tab» and says I owe him $ 28. I said no way. I do not owe you $ 28, I owe you for 2 Shiners. The guy stood there and argued with me told me I had bought a bunch of mixed drinks. He pretty much called me a liar and said that he would «take the hit for me» and went to talk to his manager about it. He comes back, tried to give me my card back, and I look at the card and said «This isn’t even my card». He had pulled a card for a girl with the same last name as me. Then he went back and found my tab, and said «Oh yeah. You only had 2 beers.» I did not receive a sorry for his mistake.
I feel like this bar has an elitist mentality. I refuse to ever step into this bar again. If you don’t look like a New York model or appear to be an old man with money to spend… good luck. If I could rate this place, less than one star I would.

Is the shark tank in this place meant to be a joke? It really is a perfect example of what’s going on in that club: sharks looking for their next victim.
Interestingly, the aquarium was the only thing I found worth watching at this waste of space. The vast majority of men there were too young for me, and I’m only 31. I can’t begin to tell you how much I hate clubs, mainly the meat-​market aspect of them. And then there’s the crappy-​ass music they usually play, and the overpriced drinks.
My «friend» essentially forced me to go here Friday night. We took her car and parked at the Chase Bank bldg at 5^th/​Lavaca, although I don’t know why, as we could have gotten free parking in the same garage if we’d taken my car. I was under the impression that we would check out a few bars in the area, like Ginger Man. Had I known that her plan was to drag me into this hell hole, I would have offered to drive, or at least taken my car and met her downtown. That way, I’d have more leverage in the decision. Since she drove, I felt obligated to go where she wanted to go. I frankly didn’t know any actual meat-​market clubs existed in Austin. Places like Qua simply don’t fit in Austin, though I am at a complete loss to explain the seam-​popping crowd there.
My friend was so excited when we walked in, but I started having an episode of post traumatic stress disorder. See, I lived in Dallas but moved here in 2001 because I hated The Big D[iarrhea] so much. I got dragged to the occasional club when I lived up there, and dealt with all the Dallitude from the skeezy pathetic people who frequented the places. So you can understand why I dipped into my purse for a Xanax when we walked into the pretend-​cool club.
I stood at the bar drinking a brew while my friend danced with anything with a third leg. Then she grabbed me and pulled me onto the dance floor. I wiggled around a little for a minute, but I just wasn’t into it at all. I didn’t want all these probably-​STD-​infested guys getting any ideas, and I certainly wasn’t digging the techno music. At that point, I purposely tried to put out a hands-​off vibe. I told my friend that I’d actually dance if the DJ played anything I considered good. I ended up dancing to «Beat It» by Michael Jackson toward the end of the evening, but that was it.
The rest of the time, I stood at the bar and chit-​chatted with a very out-​of-​place 48-​year-​old man about The Beatles. At one point some schmuck stumbled over to me and offered to buy me a drink. At least, I think that’s what he was offering. He was slurring so much, and the music was so loud, that I’m really not sure. I laughed and asked him if English is his second language. I don’t think he understood what I said, even though I yelled it, because he looked at me with a question mark on his face, laughed nervously, and then made a comment about how pretty he thinks I am while simultaneously reaching out for my chest. That’s when I grabbed my beer and went to look for my friend on the dance floor. Told her I’d be on the front patio whenever she was ready to leave. An hour later, we finally left.
I like places where I can relax and be myself and have interesting conversation, instead of having to put on some plastic attitude and hooker heels and pretend to be an airhead with a modeling contract in order to catch a guy’s attention. Wearing jeans, intelligence, and a witty attitude, I think I was sorely out of place at Qua.
The sharks were interesting, though. The ones in the aquarium, I mean.

I feel badly for the sharks. That’s the first image I get in my head when I think of Qua: isolated sharks swimming about aimlessly, around and around, under glass, while people dance above them. What should be intriguing inevitably morphs to sad and unnecessary.
I have been to Qua for some fun fashion-​related events and last went a few months ago by request. What throws me off is that a place can put up a façade of such pretentiousness when it isn’t followed through entirely. The night we went, some of the ladies were dressed nicely, but others were extremely casual (think jeans and flip flops). I have nothing against casual, but when the ladies are this relaxed at such a place, it’s a given the men wont be putting in much effort. Sure enough, the men here largely disappointed in terms of attire and maturity.
As far as exclusivity goes, their website and commercials boast restrictions on dress and age. I interpret this as a technique to cover themselves for turning away anyone they want: they can justify it by saying you don’t meet their stated criteria. If they don’t agree with your sexual orientation, they can say you’ve been turned away because of your attire, for example. So while I have never had a problem myself, I would find it difficult to return given what others have wrongfully experienced.

For the first time in I don’t know how long, I ventured downtown for something other than work or pinball… namely, an evening out with friends. Since we were in the warehouse district and being curious about the atrocity that is Qua, I had to see for myself.
The «dance floor» is no longer roped off, leaving the in floor (complete with sharks) aquarium as a stomping ground for four inch stiletto heels that almost every female in here seemed to be wearing. Seeing that was enough, I quickly turned tail and headed out of here.
This place is swanky, ridiculous, and completely over the top. Did I mention that some of the sharks have died allegedly because of the loud music and perhaps the people stamping all over the top of the tank? Because they have.
Where are all the Austin animal rights activists? I know you’re out there!