The History of The WayOut Wine Bar

Back in 1993 Steffan and Vicky Lee were performing together and promoting venues such as Sunday nights at The Hippodrome Leicester Sq

It was this work and our DragMania Shows that attracted the attention of Bar Manager Lee Whitby the manager of a small Wine Bar in Goodge Street asked the team to promote her wine bar every Saturday.

Vicky had just researched the first 'Tranny Guide' book and knew that the cross-dressing scene lacked a unique Saturday tranny night.

At that time Ron Stormes Travestie Extrordinaire was monthly and Teds had a Thursday night at a predominantly lesbian and gay bar..

Jamisons Wine Bar in Goodge St was transformed into The WayOut Wine Bar each week. Every sign was changed every wall picture was changed to hollywood heroines. The first night was a great success attracting 100 people and has never had less than 100 since.

So thourough was our makeover of the bar that many thought we had bought the bar, They would be amazed that they could not find the bar in the week.

It was our policy in those days not to take pictures of visitors to the club as many were deep in the closet - If YOU have pictures from these days that you would like to see on these pages please contact us.

After one year in Goodge St we fell fowl of licencing laws and lost our Jamisons venue

Without loosing a night we moved The WayOut Wine Bar a mile to Maceys (now a sports bar), opposite Miss Selfridge in Duke Street

It was while we were at Maceys that we started the Wayout CLUB held monthly at Bar Circa, under the Satchi & Satchi building on Berkley Squar
The CLUB ran in parallel with the WINE BAR for a year Th

A change of ownership and management at Maceys made us move again.

The History of The WayOut CLUB

During the move from Maceys to a bigger venue in Knighstsbridge, under the Scotch House we merged the CLUB and the WINE BAR

Check out this review from those days
http://www.phreak.co.uk/anon/titbits/vicky.html
At this time everyone at WayOut would be familiar with 'The Tranny Guide' book at a time when everyone on the tranny scene was finding their feet including our male admirers. People were looking for "like minded others". Tranny Guide awards would be cheered with enthusiasm.

The 'Knightsbridge' venue was closed due to sound and licensing problems (possibly because Vicky Lee was the DJ - so once again The WayOut Club was on the move. We spent a short time under the theatre in Drury Lane at the time showing 'Cats'.

We next were made welcome in Grt Titchfield Street at a two floor restaurant called 'Shorts' for another short period of time and many consider this to be one of our best venues. It's here that Vicky spun the discs again and Miss Sarah Lloyd became a regular helper and 'WayOut Girl' on other nights the venue was used by a swingers club and cross fertilization led to swingers becoming regulars at WayOut (and v.v) The venue was closed by the police as the venue had no licences and was staying open with various promotions every night of the week.

Steffan and Vicky Lee had been hosting Wednesday nights at 'The Tatty Bogle' a Piano Bar under Kingly Court near Carnaby Street. With the loss of 'Shorts' for our Saturday night the WayOut Club was welcomed to 'The Tatty Bogle' This venue only held a hundred people and we ran on a one in one out basis for much longer than we should have done but we were determined to search for a good sound venue with long term prospects.

In our search we passed over 'Charlies' in Crosswall as it dit not have sound and lights at the time. Instead we moved to 'Hot Shots' in Minories Charlies sister bar owned by the same person our good friend Tony.

Compared with the 'Tatty Bogle' Hot Shots was enourmouse. It was hard to fill it at first and we had so much space we would shut off areas for ad hoc photo shoots. Tony soon after changed the venues name to 'Tiffanys' and by now the venue was getting busy. Some nights were linked with Ritual fetish Magazine and some of the fetish crowd cross fertilized and became WayOut regulars (from these nights Kim and Club Rub took the opportunities to use another of Tony's venues and became one of the most stable and largest fetish clubs in London) However we decided that WayOut should not hold "fetish nights" as the basis of our philosophy was "no dress code" and most fetish clubs and their visitors prefer "strict dress code".

Tiffany lease ran out and Tony offered WayOut Charlie's just around the corner which he had now equipped with sound and lights. We have now been with Tony in the City since 1997.

The WayOut Club has never missed a Saturday night. Some of the clubs regulars have also never missed a week. The club now enjoys the most mixed crowd that can be found in any club. The WayOut team have always encouraged non - bigotted people to join Trannies of every flavour whilst also always being welcoming to new and inexperienced people. The very best nights have been the most mixed nights.

We recognise that WayOut has now evolved. Now many people visiting WayOut may not know the Tranny Guide book, and can't remember a time without the internet and the confidence it has inspired.

Now WayOut is as much a diversity club as a transgender club. We believe this is why the club can be euphoric, spiritually uplifting but can also appear intimidating and awesome to some who are not yet confident with diversity..
(I used to feel the same way about the late Kinky Gerlinky nights).

Note: A NEW Friday Night
WayOut Wine Bar
was breifly revisited in 2004

Following a constant flow of requests for news of a Friday night we responded with our original concept for a new and more confident generation of T-Girls and their friends to mix with "like minded others" in a quality venue and to make it their own. This night ran from April to July 2004 and was enjoyed by all tha visited - However at this time interest was not strong enough to support a Friday night at this venue and was subsequently closed.
Proving the phrase "use it or lose it".

Vicky Lee

Would you like to send YOUR memories and pictures from our 12 year history ? if you do we will set up a new page with your stories.