Vampires Own Nightclubs

"Sookie: [T]here's this vampire bar where Maudette and Dawn use to hang out at in Shreeveport. You know it? Bill: Fangtasia. Sookie: Fang-tasia?

Bill: You have to remember that most vampires are very old. Puns used to be the highest form of humor."

- True Blood, "Escape From Dragon House"

In Urban Fantasy settings where vampires exist, there is an interesting tendency for one or more of the vampire characters to own night clubs.

Naturally, when you (usually) can't go out during the day, subsist on the blood of humans, can't enter someone's home without an invitation, and are part of a mythological race that is commonly associated with sex and a lack of inhibitions, such a business venture makes sense. You can operate during the night without anyone batting an eye, you can get your prey to come to you, and hey, everyone wants to have a little fun now and again even if they're dead, right?

See also Vampire Dance and Vampires Are Rich.

Anime and Manga

 * In the first Hellsing anime, the Valentine brothers own a nightclub. All the women that work at the club are vampires, too.

Film

 * In a twist, the mafia boss who gets turned in Innocent Blood already controls a nightclub in addition to a large number of other businesses.
 * Vamp (1986) had a vampire-owned bar.
 * More like a strip club. The ones in From Dusk Till Dawn (1996) went even farther downmarket, operating a bordertown off-highway whorehouse.
 * "Common" in Blade (at least in the movie).
 * The Matrix - Vampires and werewolves work in a nightclub owned by their French boss.
 * An ironically named "House of Frankenstein" in the 1997 TV remake was one operated by vampires.

Literature

 * Jean-Claude from the Anita Blake series owns several, including "Guilty Pleasures" (a male strip club where the performers are vampires and shape-shifters), "The Laughing Corpse" (a comedy club), and "Danse Macabre" (a dance club).
 * Piscary from The Hollows owned one, later managed by Kisten after Piscary goes to prison.
 * Karen E. Taylor's Vampire Legacy series features a vampire - owned night club.
 * "Fangtasia", Eric's night club in The Southern Vampire Mysteries (and its adaptation True Blood).
 * In The Dresden Files, the White Court vamps own a creepy sex club called Zero (boundaries, inhibitations, limitations, etc.). Bianca, a vampire of the Red Court, runs the Velvet Room, but it's more of a high-class call girl ring.
 * In the Kitty Norville series, vampires owned nightclubs before they widely known to exist. And since these vampires could hypnotize and play with people's memories, the bitten tend to go home remembering what a great time they had.
 * Lady Crymsyn by P. N. Elrod. It's both the name of a book in the Vampire Files series and of the club the main character owns for the rest of the series.
 * A variation in Sweetblood. A man who claims to be a vampire holds huge parties at his house for goths and for others who claim to be vampires.

Live-Action TV

 * Lillie Langtry from Kindred: The Embraced owned the night club "The Haven".
 * Janette in Forever Knight owned the night club and popular vamp hang-out "The Raven"; when she left the show, her sire LaCroix took it over and made it more Fan Service-y.
 * Wait...a vampire woman named Jeanette owns a night club and has a superior named La Croix? That seems vaguely familiar...
 * The game seems to have ripped off Forever Knight, since FK came first.
 * Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Demon bars. Lorne's place Caritas ("Sanctuary") explicitly forbids violence through the use of magical wards. There were also vampire bars where humans go to get fed on.
 * A vampire's efforts to open a nightclub kicked off the plot of the House of Frankenstein 1997 TV miniseries.
 * A 700-year-old vampire named Lola owns a night club in an episode of Moonlight, using it as a front for her vampire drug operation. There is a VIP section that requires one to have a chip implanted into the hand that confirms one's identity and VIP status. This is because the VIP section is where the drug is sold.

Tabletop Games

 * Vampire: The Masquerade has a supplement book about "The Succubus Club", a vampire night club in Chicago.
 * In the city of Lekar in Ravenloft, the living monstrous-humanoid vampyres own "feeding houses": sordid clubs where they can pick up victims, and which double as fighting-pits for human-vs-monster gladitorial duels.

Video Games

 * Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines has four of them: "Asylum", owned by Therese and Jeanette Voerman, "Asp Hole", owned by Ash, "Vesuvius", (a strip club) owned by Velvet Velour, and "Confession", which can be co-owned by the Player Character.
 * Occurs in the Sam and Max episode "Night of the Raving Dead".
 * In The Sims 2, while vampires don't exactly own nightclubs, the only way to find the Grand Vampires (and turn your Sim into a vampire without cheats) is at Downtown lots.

Web Comics

 * Parodied at one point in The Adventures of Dr. McNinja. The vampires opted for the Red Cross instead of night clubs.
 * Carmilla in This Is the Worst Idea You've Ever Had.

Real Life

 * Catering to those who live the "vampire lifestyle" that originated from the Gothic subculture, this website features a directory of vampire-friendly bars and nightclubs in cities. http://www.vampirewebsite.net/vampirebarsclubs.html