The owner of the Monkey Bar, Mauro Aniello, is building an almost $1 million addition onto the restaurant/night club.

He is planning on using the addition to host private parties and community events.

“I have a lot of events where people want to have a private party in the back so I can’t close the front to have a private party,” Aniello said. “So I’ll continue to have my business in the front and a private party in the back. I can have weddings, retirement parties, you guys want to book a party with x amount of people we’ll have a DJ in the back with music and we’ll be able to accommodate you.”

The addition will include an outdoor dinning room and a bar that will serve exotic food.

“We’re adding a deck for outdoor dinning; we’re going to have a tequila bar, and tapas food,” Aniello said.

The addition will be easily accessible from the Boltwood Walk parking garage.

“The restaurant, which is on the same floor…allows us [to] have people come in from the garage; we’ll have an entry from there,” Aniello said.

The cost of the renovations is close to $1 million.

“It’s in the ballpark between 750 and 1 million,” Aniello said. It is scheduled for completion by Thanksgiving.

The Monkey Bar, during the day, is a stylish restaurant that serves Cajun and American food with a twist of Asian sophistication. At night, it becomes a small club.

“It is well known as a restaurant for lunch and dinner and after certain hours it’s well known as a nice place to go dancing where people don’t wear a backward baseball cap,” Aniello said. “It’s a more sophisticated scene where…[guys] want to have a good night with [their] girl.”

Regulars that go to the Monkey Bar feel that the new addition will attract more people.

“It’s a smart move, it’s going to work for everyone,” Tom Walsh, a former cook from the Monkey Bar, said. “You see there’s a line now and when that’s open most likely there will be a bigger line to get in here. It’s going to make money and it’ll be a spot that everyone can go at once, as opposed to 75 here 100 there. From the sound of it it’s going to be nice. There’s going to be a side-bar on the back, there’s going to be a dinning room for 150.”

Some feel that Aniello made a wise decision and everyone will benefit from the new addition.

“It’s a no lose situation for everyone because they need something new in town, and he’s [Aniello] been the newest thing beside Atlantis, and Atlantis is Atlantis: they’re never going to extend the basement,” Walsh said.

Some say that the Monkey Bar is the most sophisticated bar in Amherst.

“It’s the most sophisticated place anywhere, really,” Marina Korniyenko, an alumnus of the university said. “It’s like Boston or New York, but in a really really small town.”

Regulars are attracted to The Monkey Bar’s classy and cosmopolitan atmosphere.

“[I like the] international crowd, the fact that a lot of my friends go here, and the fact that we spend so much money, and the fact that there’s so much good music and people dress up,” Korniyenko said.

Some want the construction to be over so they can enjoy a fully functional Monkey Bar.

“I think once the smoking porch is back it will really enhance my Monkey Bar experience,” Kathryn M. Hunt, an international relations major at Mount Holyoke, said.