Billboard named DiVito “best regional dee-jay” in 19. An interior decorator, DiVito assisted in designing the club’s layout and sound and light systems. Lou DiVito became the Bistro’s main DJ in 1974. Dugan alluded to the club’s restrictive door policy in a 1974 Chicago Tribune article, explaining, “We’re primarily gay, and we don’t want straights filling the place up so our regular clientele can’t get in.” On some nights, the line of people waiting to get in stretched an entire block, just north of the iconic corn-cob shaped towers of Marina City.
Go-go dancers, including a drag queen known as the Bearded Lady, often performed above the large dancefloor, which was surrounded by three bars and decorated by a pair of bright neon lips.
Eddie Dugan opened The Bistro, Chicago’s first big, influential disco, in May of 1973, at what had been an old French restaurant.
