The expansive 47,000-square-foot building with three levels at the corner of Peachtree Street and 6th Street was alive with hundreds of men dancing together to booming beats under an electric light show and that unforgettable, giant shimmering disco ball. And when Grooms entered the legendary nightspot, he was overwhelmed by what he saw and felt.
“That’s what we were called back then,” Grooms, now 56, said of the invitation. One Friday night, a co-worker told the 20-year-old Grooms, “I’m going to take you to a fag club.” It was 1983 and Mitch Grooms had just moved to Atlanta from rural Paris, Tenn., where he found work at a Krystal restaurant on Jimmy Carter Boulevard in Norcross.
