Red Bull - A Bar Before It Was An Energy Drink

From the Vaults of Faces on Fourth Street - Before there was a bar with a name taken from a children's book in Sauget, before Velvet, before Mag's, Clementine's, and The Complex poured their first drink, there was Faces on Fourth Street. Faces' founder, Jerry Edwards operated bars called The Red Bull (before there was an energy drink) in two successive locations in East St. Louis and bar called The News Room...then he purchased a closed department store and created Faces. Jerry died several years ago, but the legendary club lives on. Faces on Fourth Street celebrates our 29th anniversary this October. Some of those years have been rough...there have been times when Faces barely survived...not only did we lose several generations of wonderful customers and dear friends to AIDS before an American President would even publicly speak about it, we were also confronted with competitors less then a block away. Over the years, others have tried and failed to copy Faces. If you look to your right as you get off east bound highway 64 at the Fourth Street exit, you can see Club XO. Club XO, now a hip hop club, used to be a gay club called City Center, then the Metroplex. Three different sets of owners of City Center tried to compete with Faces by copying our concept...never creating something new...just copying us...some of the most savvy bar owners... both gay and lesbian were involved...each time, the customers decided to stick with us and our competitors failed.