Patrons at the new Club F++t in downtown San Francisco smiled awkwardly when 34 people suffering from Talipes equinovarus, or clubfoot, requested entry into the nightclub. Those smiles quickly turned to frowns as these latecomers had to be stabilized by emergency podiatry units after the club’s music encouraged rigorous dancing, which resulted in many snapped tarsals and metatarsals.
“All these guys and their dates have crooked feet, and they’re asking me if they can go inside the Club F++t,” recalls a despondent Russell Dawes, the nightclub’s bouncer. “And all their names were on the list! So I tried not to be a jerk and laugh. I just did my job. But after all those horrible accidents, I wish I had just laughed in their faces.”
“I was just trying to be tongue-and-cheeky with the name of the club, that’s all,” says owner Shane Demola. “It’s called Club F++t because you use your feet to dance, I’d never make fun of the gimps.”
Though the doors have closed on the F++t in San Francisco, Demola plans to start fresh by relocating to a city with a minimal clubfooted population. Meanwhile, the Club F++t building space will be rented to a store that sells golf equipment.
