The king of clubs: Famed Akron nightclub owner Red Shapiro turns 100

The smile is warm. The handshake is firm.

At age 100, Arnie “Red” Shapiro is still the consummate host when guests arrive at his Fairlawn apartment. He makes visitors feel at home.

For decades, Shapiro waded through crowds to greet people, shake hands and dispense hugs. Smiling, always smiling, he became one of the most familiar faces in Akron nightlife.

“I enjoyed the people,” he said.

Shapiro owned Red’s, the legendary nightclub at East Waterloo Road and South Arlington Street, for over 30 years. He later managed a half-dozen other establishments and worked into his late 80s.

Now, he’s reached the century mark. Shapiro will celebrate his 100th birthday Saturday with a relatively low-key event.

“I told everybody I didn’t want a party,” he explained.

His family couldn’t let the milestone go unnoticed, though, so there will be a private gathering with 40 relatives and friends.

It will be a lot quieter than 2018 when 600 people packed Tangier for Shapiro’s 95th birthday. Back then, he joked that he would sell tickets for his 100th birthday.

“No refunds,” he said.

Early life of Red Shapiro

Arnold Shapiro, the only child of Carl and Ida Shapiro, was born Dec. 9, 1923, in Cleveland, but moved as a child to Akron, where he grew up in a Jewish neighborhood off Raymond Street.

In an era when just about every kid had a nickname, Shapiro got tagged with “Red” because of his hair color.

He still remembers the most astounding thing to occur during his youth.

“My dad in 1927 brought home a radio in a big box and plugged it in a wall,” Shapiro said. “And somebody started talking.”

That Philco radio was magical to the little boy. Over the next several years, he listened in awe to such programs as “Amos ’n’ Andy,” “The Goldbergs” and “Tom Mix.”

In 1929, Shapiro’s parents opened the Farmer’s Exchange Market, a 24-hour store at Waterloo and Arlington, and he started helping out at age 6, learning to pack groceries.

After graduating from Buchtel High School in 1942, Shapiro briefly attended Ohio State University before returning to the family business.

“My parents called me back to work,” he said.

He probably could have spent the rest of his career at the market, but a fire destroyed the building April 1, 1957. Defective wiring sparked the blaze.

Bar opens on Waterloo Road

Shapiro bought Shorty’s, a honky-tonk next to the store’s rubble, as a side business until the Farmer’s Exchange could reopen.

“I didn’t buy it to stay there,” he said. “It was to keep watch until they rebuilt the market.”

He changed course, though, when his parents scrapped plans for a new store and retired from the grocery business. Shapiro turned his full-time attention to the bar at 1027 E. Waterloo Road, which he renamed Red’s.

“It was a tough bar,” he recalled. “There was a naval base at the airport, and all the sailors came in there.”

Fights erupted and fists flew when the liquor flowed. Shapiro couldn’t keep a jukebox because brawling sailors kept smashing it. When the naval base closed about six months later, the bar began to attract a more diversified clientele: factory workers, professionals, college kids, you name it.

As business grew, Shapiro expanded the lounge in 1960 and 1963.

“Looking for good food? Well, don’t stop at Red’s!” he advertised. “But if you want to have a blast — stop in!”

The Four Fifths, a jazz combo led by Tom Stekle, earned $400 a week as Red’s house band from 1963 to 1966. Shapiro eventually switched to commercial acts with danceable songs and flashy shows.

Shapiro credits Akron musician Larry Alltop with giving him the idea to hire road bands from out of state. The first one he booked was Papa Graves from New Orleans. A parade of national acts followed with names such as Cyclone, Midnight Snack, Spellbound, Atlantis, Sketches, Pokerface, Big Deal, Mercedes, Goodfoot, Brimstone, Centerfold, Streetlife, Raisin Cane, Incognito and Punch.

“They were expensive,” Shapiro said. “Instead of paying $400 or $500 a week, I paid $1,500 a week.”

Singer Brenda Lee called Shapiro to promote The Casuals, her tuxedo-clad backup band on Dot Records.

“Would you like them at your place?” she asked. “If you hire them for four or five weeks at a time, I’ll come up and sing for you for free.”

And that’s how Lee, a future Rock & Roll Hall of Famer, became a regular performer at Red’s.

Devastating fire at nightclub

Business continued to boom. The dance floor was crowded every night as young people flooded the nightclub for music and drinks. Shapiro was on top of the world.

And then he got that terrible call in the early morning of Feb. 10, 1974.

Red’s was on fire.

The three-alarm blaze, which began in the kitchen, destroyed Shapiro’s nightclub. Five firefighters suffered minor injuries, but fortunately no one was hurt seriously. Hours before the disaster, the bar had been packed.

A stunned Shapiro vowed to rebuild. The first thing he did was buy El Cid on East Tallmadge Avenue so his employees would have a place to work.

“I ran that for a couple of years while they were rebuilding my new bar,” Shapiro said.

Red’s reopened on Waterloo Road in 1976 as a split-level, $500,000 club that doubled its former capacity to 600 people. Everything about it, from its stage to its dance floor to its bar, was improved.

“There was much more,” Shapiro said.

The next decade was a blur of activity. There were live bands, dance lessons, bikini contests and male revues. Professional athletes mingled with disco queens. Actor Tom Hanks, a celebrity at the All-American Soap Box Derby, stopped by the club to sample Akron nightlife.

La Flavour, originally known as Ragweed, served as Red’s house band, touring the country when the group wasn’t playing Akron gigs or recording hits like “Mandolay.”

The most that Shapiro ever paid for an act was $7,000 a week for wild man Joe Savage, a rock singer who draped live snakes around his neck and demolished furniture onstage with a chain saw. Savage became a regular performer at Red’s, and crowds gathered to see what crazy things he’d do.

“They came to get wild with him,” Shapiro said. “They loved it.”

The party ended at Red’s when Shapiro sold the business in 1988. Now that he’s 100, his original rationale for the sale is pretty amusing.

“I was getting old,” he said. “I thought I was done. I was 65 years old, and I said, ‘By God, that’s it.’”

Buck’s, Crocker’s and Posh

He figured he was supposed to start slowing down, but less than a month into retirement, he got a call from Rosemont Country Club asking if he could help out for two weeks. He stayed for 3½ years.

In 1991, Quaker Square recruited Shapiro to manage Buck’s Sports Bar & Grill, which soon expanded to Buck’s Garage and Santa Fe Station in downtown Akron. Wearing red-framed glasses, he smiled as he waded through crowds and greeted patrons. He later worked his magic at The Vault, Crocker’s at Good Park and Posh Nite Club & Bistro, occasionally packing Tangier as the host of Red’s reunion parties with La Flavour.

“My career ended when I was about 88 years old,” he said.

He worked eight years at his friend Bill Zell’s specialty pharmacy Zellmed Solutions before retiring for good.

Married three times, Shapiro has three children — Judy Kaplansky, George Shapiro and Mark Shapiro — four grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.

Two years ago, Shapiro finally had his bar mitzvah, a rite usually reserved for Jewish boys at age 13. When he was a kid, his parents were too busy working at the market to take him to Hebrew school.

Rabbi Moshe Sasonkin of Anshe Sfard Synagogue came to Shapiro’s apartment to perform the ceremony. Shapiro officially became a man at age 98.

“I don’t know if that’s true,” he said with a laugh. “Then I’d have to start all over again.”

On a recent afternoon with guests visiting, Shapiro wore a red vest and his trademark red-frame glasses.

With a little coaxing, he pulled up the vest to show a T-shirt that Luigi’s owner Mickey Ciriello and his wife, Becky, gave to him: “Red. The man. The myth. The legend.”

Asked what he’d like to say to all the people who visited his clubs over the years, Red Shapiro didn’t hesitate.

“Thanks for the great ride,” he said.

And thank you, Red, for being Akron’s host.

Happy 100th birthday!

Mark J. Price can be reached at mprice@thebeaconjournal.com

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This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Famed Akron nightclub owner Red Shapiro turns 100