“When (owner Chris) Bowers called me and said they were buying Wiley’s, I could tell he was getting ready to ask me something,” Evans said with a chuckle. “I thought he was just going to ask me to emcee a week. It blew my mind when they said, ‘Do you want to move to Dayton and be the GM for us?’ That took me completely by surprise. I wasn’t ready for it, but as surprised as I was I still said yes on the spot.
“My first time ever on a stage was three years ago here at Wiley’s,” he said. “It was on January 16. It’s a real trip when you think that three years later I’m the guy running the place. I haven’t wrapped my head around that one yet. It’s still hard to grasp, but it was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up.”
Polishing a piece of ohio history
Evans is now running Ohio’s longest running comedy club. Dan “Wiley” Lafferty opened Wiley’s Comedy Niteclub’s in 1982 at its original location at 970 Patterson Road. The club moved to its current location at 101 Pine St. in the Oregon District in 1990. Lafferty sold Wiley’s to comedian Rob Haney, who operated the club until he sold it to Bowers and his five business partners in late 2014.
The new owners also own Morty’s Comedy Joint in Indianapolis and The Laughing Derby in Louisville.
Evans not only refurbished the stage with fresh paint and carpet, he covered the old mural on the wall with a sleek metallic blue, added brighter lightning and tweaked the sound system. The bar, once closed to Wiley’s patrons, is now open to thirsty comedy fans. The menu has been updated with reasonably priced burgers, nachos and other bar food staples. The antiquated point of sale system, in use since the early 1980s, was replaced by a state of the art digital system.
“I cleaned the things that needed to be cleaned and fixed some things here and there,” Evans said. “I’ve been trying to work at it as much as possible. We rearranged the lobby and opened the bar up to the public. Changes like that are a good way for us to make money but also make the place feel more open, brighter and a little fresher.
“The place smells better now, and it looks better all around,” Evans said. “It has taken an effort from all of us to get it there. For the most part, my goal has been fixing the club up and making it look really good so people will definitely want to come back again and again.”
Expanding the customer base
The updates have paid off.
“In the first five months we’ve already doubled the numbers of when Rob was here,” Evans said. “We’re bringing in a lot of new clientele, too, which I think is impressive. We’re seeing more customers than before. We’ve also seen more new regulars who like the club and how it feels. More people are coming through the door, and we’re seeing more food and drinks being sold, which makes the servers and bartenders happy.
“It’s going good all around,” Evans said. “It’s taking some baby steps some weeks, but that number is constantly going up. This place will be booming here very shortly.”
Upcoming comedians include Rich Vos on Feb. 26-28 and Tom Green, of MTV notoriety, on March 14. For a full calendar of shows, go online to www.wileyscomedy.com.
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