Now take look around the old Lava Ignite nightclub upstairs...
Remember the Chicago Rock Cafe in Middlesbrough?
It looks a bit different to how you probably remember it.
Having been closed for several years, the town centre venue on Wilson Street has been boarded up.
But property tycoon Umar Hussain, a director at London-based Southmill Property Group, the new owner of the nightclub has given the Gazette a sneak preview of it.
He hopes that his plans - which have been submitted to Middlesbrough Council - to turn it into a multicultural wedding venue are given the go-ahead this month.
Katie Lunn / The Gazette
The former Chicago Rock bar and Lava nightclub
His company bought the premises - which includes the two floors above Chicago Rock - in January.
He plans to spend a quarter-of-a-million pounds “tarting it up” to make it ready to reopen in the summer.
Inside the silent club today, little has changed in the fixtures and fittings - but the happy hordes of clubbers and booming tunes are now just a distant memory.
A small, unplugged ghetto blaster looks like the only thing able to cough up any music.
The odd plastic glass lies scattered on the floor - maybe waiting for the bottle of Moet in the glass case to finally be opened?
The scant reminders of parties gone-by include a lonely, yet to be inflated, balloon and the odd flyer promising “free entry and £1.50 drinks all night!”
The new proposals include plans for the premises to be used as a centre for “various related functions” which include: a banqueting suite, weddings, parties, concerts, nightclub and events.
“We plan to call it The Grand Estoria Venue,” said Umar, 38.
“There will be a ballroom suite on the ground floor, a millionaire’s suite on the first floor and a VIP lounge on the second floor.
“Middlesbrough was a second home to our family and I still have some family living here. There is a big Asian community here.
“I thought there is a lot of potential here. We have a property portfolio and buy and sell mainly in London but we are expanding nationwide.”
The site opened as a Chicago Rock Cafe in 1999 after £2.9m was spent renovating the club formerly known as the Venue.
It boasted an island bar in the middle of the building and another underneath a raised stage with an 800-person capacity. An American-style restaurant seating 80 was also opened in the building.
The upstairs of the premises was originally known as Liquid but a £500,000 investment saw it reopen in 2005 as Lava and Ignite.
In 2007, Chicago Rock Cafe and the upstairs nightclub, then known as Love2Love, was the first in the region to use swabs to test for cocaine use.
After the premises closed, Middlesbrough Council turned down an application in 2011 to reopen the closed Chicago Rock after concerns about the applicant’s criminal history.
The premises have been closed ever since.
Katie Lunn/The Gazette
Umar Hussain is planning to re-open the bar as a wedding venue
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