Mambo Cafe Review

Earlier this year I spent several weeks taking Salsa dance lessons at Sandega Dance Studio, getting to a low intermediate level (according to their class organizations). During those weeks I went to several Saturday night "socials" that were presented by the studio. These were very enjoyable BYOB affairs for $10 per person. Typically, we'd bring a bottle of wine, find a table and dance for a couple of hours to good quality salsa, meringue and mambo music provided by the DJ. A wide age range of people attended ranging from early teens to 60-ish. The socials provided a very wholesome smoke-free environment for practicing Latin dance styles, meeting new people and getting experience with a variety of dance partners.

Last night we tried the Mambo Cafe in downtown Dallas. We expected a similar kind of experience except in a nightclub setting. The Mambo also features a live Latin band for two sets, alternated with DJ. The attraction of dancing to live music was a big selling point.

We arrived around 9 pm to an almost empty house. We found a great seat and enjoyed the spacious, semi-luxurious surroundings for a few minutes. Shortly after the teacher for the 9-10pm salsa lessons asked if we wanted to partipate in the lessons. We declined since we already know enough to be dangerous.

It didn't take long for people to start trickling in. By 10pm the entire place was packed. The DJ started around 10 with a couple of salsa tunes that we danced. After that the remainder of the set was long-running meringue tunes that were very repetitious and loud coupled with the music videos that accompanied the selections. However, these songs definitely attracted the most people to the dance floor.

When the live set started at 11pm, the energy level jumped up for me. First, the selections were shorter than the DJ had been playing, which allows you to dance for a while and alternate dancing on every other tune. Also, most of the selections were salsa rather than meringue. I find salsa infinitely more interesting and fun to dance due to the rich complexity of rhythm and variation in harmonic and melodic structure. So, this was a very fun dance set.

Unfortunately, once the live set was over the DJ set began with extremely loud (distorted bass) mind-numbing music that sounded like a cross between trance music, latin and the worst in repetitious club music complete with distorted, blurry and fast-moving video. There was a huge surge of younger people to the dance floor. Then, for the next hour, shoulder to shoulder, they bounced up and down to noise that seems to be put together strictly for the purpose of blotting out all possible consciousness. I guess combing large amounts of alcohol with this kind of production produces some sort of narcotic effect.

We considered leaving, but kept our stamina trying to hold out for the next live Latin set. Unfortunately by the time the live set came around, our brains were so numb from the incessant cell-killing noise from the past hour that we only danced a couple of salsas before departing.

So, if you want several hours of constructive Latin dance, Mambo Cafe is not the place to go. There is too much other extra baggage to tolerate. IMO, this was a net negative experience coming from the perspective of someone who wanted to practice Salsa skills for 2-3 hours.