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                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 1, 1992                   TAG: 9112310297
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 1   EDITION: HOLIDAY 
SOURCE: Joe Kennedy
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

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NAMES IN '91

"I really haven't been making any money on the lounge," says Lowell Reeves, who in December 1990 added a nightclub to the restaurant that bears his name at Melrose Avenue and 24th Street in Northwest Roanoke. "It's more of a break-even thing. The food over here is supplementing the lounge."

Reeves, 51, says he has done a strong business in private parties for birthdays, fraternity and sorority functions and civic clubs - perhaps 100 in his first year.

He does all right, he says, with his Casual Thursday after-work promotions, pretty good with recorded music and bands on Saturday nights, when he draws an average of 80 people. Fridays have been weak. Lately, he has run Clean and Sober Fridays, with no alcohol, for those who don't want to drink. His best nights have come when name bands, like Mint Condition, performed.

Reeves, a testing technician at GE in Salem, his wife, Alice, and other family members do much of the work.

He thinks some people, both black and white, have a mistakenly poor impression of the neighborhood. "I'm tickled to death with the clientele I have, even though it's not as big as it should be. It's a very peaceful crowd."

Keywords:
YEAR 1991

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