A small placard greets visitors who enter the double glass doors at Ellery’s bar and lounge: “No jeans. No tennis shoes. No athletic wear.”
And they mean it.
On a recent frosty Saturday night, a gaggle of young women in colorful neon catsuits and matching sneakers stood at the door protesting loudly after a security guard broke the news. “Can’t come in with tennis shoes.”
Credit: Olivia Bowdoin
Credit: Olivia Bowdoin
Inside, the place was packed. It was standing room only in the club with a capacity for 250 people. Every seat at all the tables was taken. Every bar stool was filled. The split-level dance floor overflowed with men and women dressed to the nines.
Many women of a certain age wore mini dresses, sequin tops, and sparkly jumpsuits. Men sported tailored suits and wide-brim hats, Kangols and fresh haircuts.
Women danced the night away in strappy high heels and ankle boots – and thigh-high kicks. One man sparkled in diamond-studded cowboy boots, while another donned plaid spats to match his plaid jacket. You couldn’t miss the guy in candy-apple red wingtips that matched his candy-apple red suit and red fedora.
Credit: Olivia Bowdoin
Credit: Olivia Bowdoin
Ellery’s is a people watcher’s paradise and the textbook definition of “old school.”
Patrons say Ellery’s attracts the “grown and sexy.”
There’s definitely a ‘grown, down-home’ vibe in the place.
Roy Martin called it the best 40-plus nightclub in Atlanta. He is perched on a bar stool facing the crowded dance floor. Sporting an elegant white dinner jacket, plaid baggy pants, matching plaid dress shoes, and a white pork pie hat, he was drinking a glass of water to pace himself, he says, for the wine to come. He is 73.
“Mature folks can always feel comfortable coming here,” he said.
Credit: Olivia Bowdoin
Credit: Olivia Bowdoin
Ellery’s has been a mainstay of social life for Black metro Atlantans for 27 years.
“I came the first day they opened,” Martin added. “I kept coming back for months when there were only about 12 people in the club. Ellery built this club from nothing.”
Tall and thin, Ellery Murphy is the epitome of ‘cool’ in a brown leisure suit and matching brown pork pie hat with a long braid peeking from underneath.
Credit: Olivia Bowdoin
Credit: Olivia Bowdoin
At age 70, Murphy has managed to keep his namesake club thriving. Consistency is the key, he said.
And maintaining his dress code. That’s something he adopted from his days of clubbing in his hometown of Chicago, and from his recollection of the African-American clubs of yesteryear, where people always dressed to impress. ”When you dress nice, you want to act nice,” he said.
In 1994 Murphy spotted the location for his nightclub in the Campbellton Plaza Shopping Center on Campbellton Road in southwest Atlanta when he visited his son, Shayne, who was studying business administration and marketing at Morehouse College. He opened the club in February 1998.
Credit: Olivia Bowdoin
Credit: Olivia Bowdoin
“My father’s vision was to open a nice club for the mature adult,” said Shayne Murphy, who has helped manage the club from the beginning.
The club continues to thrive, the Murphys said, because they stuck with their strategy. Ellery’s offers live entertainment on Wednesdays; hosts steppers’ dance night on Thursdays; targets the after-work set on Fridays and promotes Saturdays as a live dance party with two DJs who play old-school favorites and popular hits. And some rap music. But not hard-core rap - old-school rap.
These days lines of revelers form outside the club when the doors open at 9 p.m. on Wednesday through Saturday. It’s free to get in until 10 p.m. and $15 after that.
Consistency has led to longevity
The location in the Campbellton Plaza shopping center also made sense, Murphy said, because it offers plenty of free parking.
Credit: Olivia Bowdoin
Credit: Olivia Bowdoin
“I feel safe coming here and leaving here,” said Lawanna Pearson, 56, who discovered Ellery’s after moving to Atlanta from North Carolina five years ago and celebrated her birthday there on Valentine’s Day. “It’s an older crowd, and no riff-raff.”
Sixty-one-year-old Willie Nolton came to Ellery’s on a Friday to hang out with his sister, Valerie Stewart, 51.
“The young generation, they want to fight and get in trouble at their clubs. People come here to wind down and relax,” he said. “Everybody here knows how to treat each other with respect.”
Sylvia Nah said she enjoyed her recent visit to Ellery’s.
“It was my first, but not my last visit,” said Nah, 49, who flew into town from Philadelphia for a wedding. “I love to dance and watch Black people who enjoy dancing and mixing and mingling. The DJ was awesome and it was an atmosphere that singles and couples and groups can enjoy.”
Credit: Olivia Bowdoin
Credit: Olivia Bowdoin
Nah, dressed in an emerald-green velvet pantsuit, said she loved that the club adheres to a strict dress code. “That’s hard to find anymore.”
Von Fields, 73, said an enforced dress code has kept him returning to Ellery’s for 12 years. He loves to dress up.
“Nobody wants to bring a date to a place where the men’s pants are hanging down and their butts are showing,” he said.
Bo Wyatt, celebrated her 69th birthday at Ellery’s on a recent Wednesday night. The native Atlantan says she’s been a regular since the club opened. “It’s one of a few places mature adults can go to party without any trouble.”
Credit: Olivia Bowdoin
Credit: Olivia Bowdoin
The phone is ringing off the hook at Ellery’s on a Monday afternoon.
Shayne Murphy gives caller after caller the same information.
“I can put two tables together on the floor and that will seat 8 people comfortably,” he said. “The price will be $100.”
Reserve now, he tells them. “Seating is on a first come first serve basis.”
Murphy considers Ellery’s a success based on its ability to attract a consistently large clientele for 26-plus years. Most nightclubs last about 5-6 years, he said.
He considers Ellery’s to be a pillar of the southwest Atlanta community.
“I chose to do this with my father. I’m going to keep up the legacy, the tradition,” said Murphy. “God willing, we’ll have another 26 years.”
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