On a recent visit to the lounge on the Saturday before Halloween, at least one bachelorette party (wearing ridiculously tacky bridesmaid dresses) was there for girls’ night out. But the rest of the crowd was decidedly mixed: A crew of young gay men congregated for dinner; small groups of straight couples and middle-aged women lingered over cocktails at intimate, candlelit tables; and a troupe of drag queens in Rockettes costumes stopped in to have a quick drink. “Even my dad, who’s one of the most conservative people you would ever meet, loves this place,” Ariyanayakam says. So what’s the appeal? How does the Kit Kat win over both drag neophytes and impersonator aficionados?

The increasing mainstream acceptance of transgendered and transsexual people certainly helps: Alexis Arquette, trans sister of Patricia and Rosanna, publicly acknowledged her transition with the acclaimed 2007 documentary She’s My Brother, while NBC’s new show Dirty Sexy Money finds Billy Baldwin’s character in an affair with a trans woman. And, although the Kit Kat owners and employers still worry that some people might feel alienated by the term transsexual and instead choose to refer to the performers as female impersonators, the constant flow of fans into their club implies that they’re doing something right. “It’s so different than any other restaurant in Chicago,” Gisiger says. “And the way we do it is classier. It’s a more glamorous type of performance.”

Madame X has her own idea about why Kit Kat has lasted seven years: “Once [customers] walk through that door, it’s like poof! They turn into someone fabulous,” she says. To that end, she and the five other Kit Kat divas do everything they can to inspire that transition. Case in point: Madame X named herself after the “scandalous but beautiful” woman in John Sargent’s painting of the same name. 

During our club visit, she morphed from Marilyn Monroe’s slightly dippy ingenue to the tragically wasted ennui of Amy Winehouse. In each persona, her makeup and wigs were impeccable and her costumes exquisite, from the bejeweled white gown she wore as Marilyn to the tattooed sleeves she donned to do Amy. Madame X sings in a strong, mid-range alto, and she expertly purred “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” and crooned the saucy intro to Winehouse’s “Rehab.”

The club’s anniversary party theme might be the “seven-year itch,” but after seven successful years, the Kit Kat’s distinctive, fabulous brand of glamour appears to have staying power.