Demery's Club/Contemporary Gentlemen’s Club Twenty-One
Established as a social club for gentlemen at the original site of Demery's Barbecue on Hwy. 84 in the Grand Ecore community, this private club provided a venue for social activities like barbeques and parties. Male members of the club also fished and hunted together. One of the founders, John Winston, recalled:Black professional men went to renovate the Demery's Club – the men actually went out and renovated and started the Gentlemen’s Contemporary Club Twenty-One. It operated for a long time in this community and it was exclusively private for our wives and friends initially, and then later on we opened it up and had memberships for the general public. And that was a healthy outlet for us in our early years, particularly throughout the ‘70s…. Later on, the participation waned and we eventually gave up that idea. But then we had a good hunting club that was called the Bayou Rod and Gun Club. And that club must have operated for about 20 years. Guys would get together and have all kinds of social activities, barbeques and other activities and parties … and we would also go hunting and fishing and stuff like that. Just a bunch of guys getting together and doing a lot of things that were wholesome. Having wholesome activities in the community affording the people in the community an opportunity to go out – having somewhere to go and something to do.
Photograph by Dayna Bowker Lee.