KHTS Radio Santa Clarita Radio – Santa Clarita News
Black N’ Blue, the new entertainment-style lounge and bar at the Westfield Valencia Town Center, is scheduled to have a grand opening event in June, with proceeds from the night set to be given to the Boys and Girls Club of Santa Clarita Valley, officials said Tuesday.
The grand opening event is scheduled to take place on June 17, with new regular hours expected to be from 4 p.m. to 2 a.m., according to Lee Kan, a general partner with Zao Brands, which owns Black N’ Blue, Wokano and Bunker Hill in the same town center.
“We positioned the concept to offer something new to the community,” said Kan. “We don’t want to be a place to keep you for two hours, but we have a place for you to stay entertained for four hours.”
The restaurant is going to be an entertainment venue with several different options for its guests to enjoy, according to Kan.
Most of the business will have a Moroccan theme, providing guests with three different spaces under one roof, Kan said. Each space is designed to entertain guests with different tastes.
The business is set to have gourmet food, including choice steak; however, “We’re not a steakhouse,” Kan said. There will be a house DJ, games, a 36o-degree bar and more.
“We want the food to complement the drinking,” Kand said. “It’s not a restaurant, but we will have a dining room to lend itself to that.”
Prior to the opening of Black N’ Blue, the restaurant run out of the same location was called EMC Seafood and Raw Bar, a business under the same leadership of ZAO Brands however not under Kan’s management.
“It’s a very saturated market in Valencia and the EMC concept just didn’t do well,” said Kan. “We did have die-hard fans of the restaurant who go to some of our other locations, but it just did not fare well in Valencia.”
Though EMC is closed, Kan, who brought a new business concept to officials with ZAO Brands, invited previous staff of EMC to reinterview to work at Black N’ Blue, which would be run under different management than the former, according to Kan.
Due to the popularity of some of EMC’s menu items, the new space is set to have items that may look familiar.
“We’re going to retain some of the more popular dishes from the EMC menu, including the garden noodles, Uni pasta, clam chowder and butter clams in white wine sauce,” Kan said.
Customers attending the grand opening of Black N’ Blue will be met with a $20 entry fee, allowing guests to enjoy several free items for the evening, according to officials.
“Guests will be able to partake in unlimited tray pass food for two hours and the bar will be open and free through the evening,” Kan said.
Every dollar that’s taken at the door will be donated to the Boys and Girls Club, Kan added.
For more information on the grand opening, visit the Facebook event page here.
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I am a diehard EMC fan. The Valencia location failed because of horrible service in addition to my dish missing key ingredients because the chef “ran out”. Run out of ingredients? Yes, that happens, but guests are usually informed and/or the menu item is not served – period. I was not informed. The response to my question – “where are the…” was met with indifference and when I asked to talk to a manager, we were left for 45 minutes. My husband had to go inside to ask for the check. And then it took another 45 minutes to get said check. Massive fail. As a matter of fact, I recall having to wait for a table because the chef was “behind in his orders”. The place was empty and we would have been happy to sit in the empty restaurant with a drink or two to pass the time. Once seated, ordering our drinks was a monumental task.
Lee Kan was not involved in any way with EMC. He has taken over the location and is introducing a different concept. Ultra Lounge, Bar with pool tables and Oyster Bar. Full time DJ with music videos.
EMC was a terrible restaurant. Management was atrocious. The food was mediocre and priced too high for the quality of the dishes. I hope the new restaurant will learn from the mistakes here.