By DALE MADISON

I always enjoy hearing the back stories of how so many entrepreneurs got their starts in business. This writer first met Russ Johannsen when he was a young, star bartender at the original Cathode Ray on Las Olas Boulevard. I knew him again for years at the Eagle, and finally after he became “Mr. Ramrod.” I met his partner, Chris Burdekin, when he and I worked for Party Concepts, a Miami-based event production company which stages events costing an average of $100,000. Is it any wonder that the events at Club Boom are over-the-top?

“We worked for so many bar owners in South Florida, and we really honed our craft,” says Johannsen.

“While Chris was involved in the party and event business, he learned how to build all sorts of props, walls, and create illusions for corporate events, weddings and other parties,” Johannsen recalls. “Myself, I just learned how to manage a bar. It’s not easy to effectively manage a bar, but I did it.”

The pair is perhaps best known as the successful team behind Jackhammer. “We signed the papers to purchase ‘Chaps’ bar, which had encountered a few problems.

But we believed in the location, and we closed on April 15, 2002. We shut down and Chris began his vision of construction. All of the staff told us there is no way you will meet your scheduled opening date,” he remembers.

Adds Burdekin: “I made up my mind that the construction would be done in two weeks. Now décor will take a bit more because I am a perfectionist and I won’t just slap on a coat of paint and say, ‘Look, we’ve remodeled.’ But I was so much of a perfectionist that the staff was walking out the back door with wet paint brushes at the same moment people were coming in the front door for the Grand Opening,” Burdekin says, laughing. That was on July 4, 2002.

Burdekin remembers the pain of having to once more change locations. “We had really developed such a great following, but when the development group purchased the property, we had to move. Steel Nightclub was available, and reasonably nearby, so we took a chance,” he says. Steel lasted for three years.

“Craig Attebury, along with his business partner Tim Fautch, the owners of Boom, became regular customers of ours at Steel,” Burdekin says. “When you own a bar, you like to escape once in a while and Russ and I were the same way. We became regulars at Boom on our nights off, and we all became good friends.” That friendship led to other things.

“One fateful afternoon we stopped by Boom, and Craig was there and we just started talking. Craig had some ideas of parties and pageants and asked if I would be willing to help with décor. God knows I have a warehouse full of stuff for most any event, and so of course my reply was ‘sure!’” remembers Burdekin. “After that, one thing evolved into another event, and before you knew it, Russ was on the bar and I was decorating, and it seemed like a perfect fit to re-introduce the Jackhammer T-Dance.”

The pair teamed up recently with original “Studio 54” bartender Sal Defalco, and original “Studio 54” deejay Richie Rich, and held a “Studio 54 Reunion Weekend Party.” It was so successful, that another one has been planned for September. Get ready, too, for the Blackheart Ball in April, to benefit Broward House and the Leather Archives and Museum. If you haven’t stopped by recently, please do and make sure you tell them that Florida Agenda sent you.