Location: Patriotic Place, St. Helier
Period: Late 1980s/early 1990s
Fate: Demolished
Regular Tunes: Dependant upon the night. Commonly modern chart music and 70s Pop.
Located just a few minutes walk from the town centre The Blue Fox was part of a hotel (named The Casablanca?), which you'd never have guessed from its rather grubby reputation. It resided distinctly at the lower end of Jersey's nightclub scene, happy to take in rejects from other nightclubs. It was commonly known as a place of violence and dog-rough women (although in fairness I never found it anywhere near as bad as its reputation suggested, not in the case of the former anyway).
The main door of the hotel to which the club was connected was in Gloucester Street, almost on the corner of the building. The entrance to The Blue Fox was about 15 feet further along the side of the building in Patriotic Place.
When you walked into the club you first found yourself in a small foyer area. Directly facing you was an unused bar, through the staff door of which you could see into the neighbouring hotel bar. On the wall to the right of the foyer bar was a public telephone. Immediately to the right-hand side of the club's street entrance was a counter and till. Between the phone and till were a set of double-doors leading into the club, wooden with glass windows.
Once through those doors you would have seen a typical pub style bar taking up half of the wall on the left-hand side. Running directly opposite this along the right-hand wall were a couple of old fashioned seating alcoves, upholstered in that fake ebony and faux velvet material popular in the 1950s. The seating was dark blue in colour, and somewhat tired and worn in condition. It was all a bit Rovers Return, distinctly backstreet boozer in design.
The rear half of the club was occupied almost entirely by a very small dancefloor, with bench-style faux-velvet seating along the walls around the edges. The DJ booth was set back into an alcove on the left hand side of the dancefloor, just large enough to contain one man, a turntable and and a box of records. The toilets were at the back of the club, facing the dancefloor, one door at either side of the rear wall; Mens on the left, Ladies on the right.
On a regular night the club tended to attract the older age group (in clubbing terms), people in their 30s and 40s. The music tended to be chart hits of the 70s and 80s.
One huge difference between The Blue Fox and the island's other clubs was that it would open on a Sunday afternoon, with a different live band performing each week (the dancefloor becoming the stage). Due to the Licensing Laws of the time the island's pubs closed on Sundays at around 1pm, and almost all waited until 7pm at the earliest to re-open.The Blue Fox's Sunday session began at 4.30pm, so it was packed to capacity each Sunday afternoon. There would be a DJ playing vintage tunes for an hour or two before that week's band took to the "stage". One of the most popular attractions were a raucous R&B outfit named Two Minutes Mister Smith, a bunch of blokes in their 40s and 50s who'd clearly cut their teeth on the live circuit over many years, and as a result were tighter and more powerful than any of the young bands who played the club.
In the mid 1990s The Blue Fox began to put on a successful Friday night "Indie Rock" session, providing an alternative to the rest of St. Helier's club scene which was by that time almost entirely focused on dance music. In terms of what was being played by the DJ, it was the nearest thing in town to Sands or The Watersplash.
The Blue Fox closed down a handful of years later, sometime around the turn of the century. The entire block was sold to developers and demolished. The Blue Fox was replaced by a Chartered Surveyor's office, the side door of which is in the same place as the club's entrance.
