The Place To Be Tonight? Sardo's, Of Course!

BURBANK, Calif.—There aren't a lot of mainstream venues that unabashedly welcome members of the adult entertainment community, but Seymour Satin's nightclub Sardo's Grill & Lounge, located in the strip mall at 259 North Pass Avenue in Burbank, is the main one in Porn Valley. In fact, the club is so well talked-about among the performer community that the L.A. Times did a story on it yesterday. For those who don't know, Sardo's holds "Porn Star Karaoke" every Tuesday night, where porn stars gather to drink, converse, make deals ... and occasionally take the microphone to belt out one (or more) of their favorite songs from the hundreds of melodies in the club's repertoire. Longtime industry members may find it hard to believe, but Sardo's Porn Star Karaoke has been going strong for the better part of 13 years now—they'll be celebrating that anniversary sometime in September, though Satin hasn't set an exact date yet—and for much of that time, the evening has been hosted by performer/director Nicki Hunter. "Before she begins emceeing," the Times reported, "Hunter lists some of the rules for Porn Star Karaoke (basically, take the rules of a porn shoot and do the opposite): 'No flashing. No nudity. No sex in the bathroom…' with Satin chiming in with  '…or by the ATMs'," which was apparently a problem early on "because the lighting was better." According to the Times article, Porn Star Karaoke (or as it's popularly known, "PSK") was conceived shortly after Satin became the club's manager in 2003, and adult radio personality (and sometime performer) Wankus brought a group of fellow performers to the club, noting that they'd been looking for a place to sing karaoke but that most venues had turned them away. And while Satin hadn't watched a lot of porn in his then-45-year existence—his former "day job" had been as a librarian for an oil company—his response to the performers' request was, "Sure, why not?" PSK took off fast from there, and while it's had its ups and downs in the ensuing years, its regulars are easily described as "dedicated," even after Wankus left the business. "It really is a family," Hunter told the Times. "We get to know each other pretty personally on set. I mean, we're kind of having sex with each other. There are special bonds and relationships that you end up creating. And in the older days, it was much more of that." "It's different each night depending on the people that show up," Satin told AVN. "It depends on the crowd, getting them going, dancing, whatever. We just have a good time hopefully every night. There are no plans for the future; we just keep on going every week as we have been doing for 13 years." However, a fire this past February closed the club for three months, and Satin is still trying to rebuild the business to pre-fire levels. "No, attendance is not even close to what it was before—but I'm praying," Satin said. "The time we had the fire was the only time we ever missed a week." But, he said, among the first customers to return after the fire were the adult industry ones, and Hunter had a sort of explanation for that. "A piece of your heart and soul is here," she said. "This is kind of the hub where you can tell the temperature of the porn industry." Pictured: Seymour Satin surrounded by PSK attendees.