I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it. — Thomas Jefferson
If good luck is the fruit of hard work, then this week’s profile is a very lucky guy indeed. Darryl DePiano, owner of Icandy, takes time between his many jobs to talk to us about his latest venture.
DD: I was born and raised in Toms River, N.J., which is considered North Jersey around here, but it’s actually more in Central Jersey. In 1997, I bought a club in Wildwood. Most of our clientele came from the South Philly/Delaware area and that’s how I started getting to know people from Philadelphia.
PGN: What was the club? DD: It used to be the old QV and I changed it to the Nile. I ran it until 2004, when I knocked it down and built 25 townhouses because that was the big craze at the time. I saw that the nightlife industry was about to change: They were trying to make Wildwood more of a family resort town so, knock on wood, I saw it coming two years ahead and said, “Hmm, I think it’s time to use this property in a different way.” It was a good decision.
PGN: How did you end up here? DD: I did a lot of networking with Philly people during those years at the Nile and after it closed I started a print and marketing business in South Philly called Image Graphics. It’s still going strong.
PGN: You’re into everything. I understand you studied law at University of Pittsburgh? DD: Yeah, I take after my dad. He went to law school, I went to law school. Neither of us ever practiced law, but use the knowledge in our business dealings. All my uncles are the same way. We’re all business guys, we’ve got construction companies, finance companies — I do a lot of stock brokerage and own a small investment firm. We stay diverse. It’s funny, people who don’t know me just think of me as a nightclub guy, and that’s OK. But sometimes I laugh and say, “I wish that was all I was doing today!”
PGN: What was your family like? DD: My mom and dad were both traditional old-school Italians. The both came here from Italy, so I’m first-generation [American]. My mom was a stay-at-home mom. My dad, along with his eight brothers, was a businessman. People ask me how I was able to run my first nightclub at 20, but I’d been around my family’s businesses since I was crawling around in diapers and started working in them when I was a kid, everything from mopping floors to stocking shelves. They had about six nightclubs and restaurants at the time I was born, so I know the business well.
PGN: Do you cook? DD: Oh yeah, I currently own two restaurants so I cook and clean, whatever is needed. My family did well, but my father always insisted that we earn our way into the business. None of this you get to be manager even though you don’t know anything. Daddy didn’t hand out anything: You had to work for it. But I love that he made us learn every aspect of the business. When I worked for the construction company, I didn’t start off behind a desk — I was literally digging ditches. And he would tell his employees, “No favoritism, make him work harder than anyone.” We didn’t have a choice: My parents had seven businesses and when they thought we were ready, they pretty much said to me and my siblings, “OK, you’re buying this one, you’re buying that one … and you’ll pay us this amount of money for it.” I was 20 and in college, so they arranged to have a manager run it during the school year, and when I was finished school, I jumped right in. I had a restaurant and my brother had a construction business.
PGN: How many siblings do you have? DD: I have a brother and a sister. My sister’s the oldest and I’m the baby.
PGN: What was your favorite thing to do as a kid, when you weren’t working? DD: I lived on the ocean. I’m a beach boy. On land, I feel like a fish out of water. I own one of the townhouses I built in Wildwood and my boyfriend and I go every week. We WaveRun and Jet Ski, play beach volleyball; I surf, fish, scuba dive, anything having to do with the water. I grew up by water and I thought everybody did! When I first came to the city, I was like, this is terrible, everyone’s so pale!
PGN: What was the worst sunburn you ever got? DD: Oh, that was in Florida, I fell asleep on the beach and got burned really badly. It was probably sun poisoning but of course I was too stubborn to go to the hospital! It was bad: I couldn’t put pants on for three days.
PGN: Ever play any organized sports? DD: I was a gymnast.
PGN: Really? Not what I expected. DD: I know. People usually think that I was a hockey player or tough defensive back or something. I love football — it’s my favorite sport to watch — but my dad was the head football coach at my high school and I didn’t want to play under him. He was really, really tough. My brother played for him and I thought, Uh, maybe I should do something else … So I got into gymnastics. I didn’t have the upper strength to do the rings, but I was very competitive on the pommel horse and parallel bars.
PGN: When did you come out? DD: I knew when I was a teenager but I struggled with it for a long time. I was the drunk gay, I was the in-the-closet-gay dating girls. I was actually engaged for a time. I didn’t have any friends who I could talk to and I didn’t see any gay people that I could relate to. I come from an old-school Italian family, very masculine-based, and all my friends growing up were straight. I don’t look or act like what people expect a gay person to be. Even now, having a boyfriend and owning a gay bar, people are surprised to find out that I’m gay. I was in the closet at first; then, like a lot of men, including our former Gov. McGreevey, I had my own kind of “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. I had a boyfriend and my friends knew, but we didn’t talk about it. I was concerned about coming out both personally and as a businessman. I don’t care who knows any more, but I’m still not the type to wave a rainbow flag — it is what it is. It doesn’t define who I am. I’m just me. It’s funny: Our general manager, who is my best friend and roommate, and happens to be straight, tells me that in 10 years he can see me being a big activist for the gay community. I can see that: I’d like to see the faces of everyday guys like me and my boyfriend portrayed in the media. It annoys me when they only show the most extreme sides of our community. Everyone has a place, but I wish they would show a more complete picture. It shocks people when we tell them we’re gay, ’cause they’re not used to seeing people like us. I just corrected my landscaper this weekend when he said something about my “roommate.” I told him, “That’s not my roommate, that’s my boyfriend.” His face was like, What?! But that’s where I am now: I’m comfortable with who I am and don’t care who knows it.
PGN: How did you come out? DD: I have a cousin who is gay and we came out to each other. It gave me someone to talk to and relate to. Because I didn’t know any gay people, I was terrified to go into a gay club for fear I’d run into someone I knew. Of course now I laugh, realizing if they were in there too, there was a reason for it! And now I own a gay club. Full circle. I think it’s great that young people have the Internet and other outlets where they can connect. There’s still bullying and other problems, especially in rural areas, but hopefully it’s getting a little easier. It’s nice to see marriage in New York and civil unions in New Jersey. That they’re finally recognizing that, yeah, if I’ve been with my partner for 30 years, he should have the right to visit me in the hospital and have more of a say over what happens to me than an estranged brother I might not have talked to for 10 years. But we have so far to go.
PGN: That’s true. DD: Though if you ask me, sometimes we need to pull it back and not be all gay, all the time. I got flack for flying four rainbow flags and two American flags instead of all rainbows, but I say, I’m proud to live in a country where we can safely fly a rainbow flag and we should be proud of that. Never forget that a lot of people — gay, straight, male and female from the Stonewall Riots to current times — sacrificed to give us that right. There are a lot of places in the world where you can’t do something as simple as put up a rainbow flag.
PGN: Any difference between running a gay bar and a straight bar? DD: Not really. I’ve run restaurants, straight clubs, strip clubs, you name it. It’s just a matter of finding out what each demographic wants and delivering it.
PGN: Best thing about your partner? DD: Michael Moore. He’s amazing. He’s a caring, loving, understanding guy. I think a lot of people misunderstand both of us. When we first met, we were both like, “I thought this about you” and “Well, I thought you were going to be … ” and we were both pleasantly surprised. He’s a strong, determined guy. He’s a recovering addict with 31 months sober and I admire that. We all have things in our past that we’re not proud of, but he’s turned himself around. I believe everybody deserves a second chance. Hey, if I added up all the money I lost making bad business decisions, I probably wouldn’t have to work now, but you make mistakes and grow from them. And he’s adorable and cute and sexy.
PGN: Other than you were a gymnast, what’s something people would be surprised to know about you? DD: [Laughs.] Well, Michael was surprised that despite my tough demeanor, I love what people call “chick flicks.” I love emotional-type movies. And he does too — he was afraid to tell me because he thought I would think they were too “gay,” but I love a good love story.
PGN: Your favorite? DD: “The Notebook.” It’s the last movie I watched with my mom before she passed.
PGN: Are you high maintenance? DD: No, not at all [laughs] … well, maybe. Nah, I’m definitely not.
PGN: Who’s your best friend? DD: My manager Jeff, he’s my best friend, my roommate and life partner and he’s straight! Though everyone here thinks he’s gay.
PGN: What was the hardest age to turn? DD: Thirty. I had a lot of fun in my 20s — a lot of fun. But at 30, I felt the societal pressures of getting married and having a family and I wasn’t out yet. I was engaged and I was successful in business, but I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. It was a tough time but I got through it and things are great now. It really does get better.
PGN: Are you a practicing Catholic? DD: I was baptized in the Catholic faith and I believe in a higher spirit but I don’t believe in the Catholic religion. As a gay man, I think it’s a hypocritical institution. I don’t put anyone down who is part of the church — to each his own — but I have my own ways of believing. I believe that my parents are somewhere in a better place, I believe in God and Jesus Christ, but I don’t subscribe to the hypocrisy of the Catholic Church, at all.
PGN: Speaking of spirits, ever have a paranormal experience? DD: My mom was into that stuff; she used to have séances and go to fortunetellers and I would always laugh at it and give her a hard time. I thought it was nonsense but not any more. My club in Wildwood was built in an old Lutheran church and it was definitely haunted. We had everything from things moving and flying off shelves to doors opening and closing and music suddenly blaring. I’d lock up the place at night and turn everything off. When I came back in the morning every light in the place would be on and no one else had the keys but me! I brought my Rottweiler in one time and he freaked out by this one spot on the wall, like he was going to eat it. We had paranormal people check the place out and they found activity at that same spot without knowing that that was the place the dog went crazy.
PGN: What kind of boss are you? DD: I’m a team player. I’d rather encourage people than tear them down. I’d say me and Jeff are both working bosses. People are always surprised that we’re always here in the mix, trying to make sure everyone’s having a good time and that Icandy is doing what we set out to do.
PGN: So for someone who hasn’t been here for a while, what can they expect to find? DD: Well, we try to present a new option for the gay community. We want to have a nice dance club where everybody can find something they like. We have a four-story building and we want to have a different vibe on each level. Want to hang out and talk but don’t want to shout over the music, you can stay at the first floor bar. Want some eye candy? Check out the dancers on the second floor. People tell me I’m trying to put other bars out of business, but not at all. Woody’s is doing a lot of renovations right now and good for them. Competition breeds good business. We’re just trying to do our best. We’re starting to do brunch on Sundays, we’ve revamped the light show with lasers and put in a new sound system. Wednesday to Saturday we’re going New York-style with bottle service, the lava lounge is taken from the Miami Beach scene and the tiki deck will make you feel like you’re on a Caribbean island. We’re starting to do live concerts as well. We recently had En Vogue perform for the Pride Day after-party. And we want to give back to the community. I’m all about supporting the community that supports us. We want to give a lot to both big organizations and to the little guy who needs help. We’re all in this together.
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