Erica Cunningham created, maintains and promotes ComeUnity, which is held the first Saturday of every month at Six Degrees. ComeUnity offers something new to the San Diego GLBT nightlife — the seven-month old nightclub event is a combination of music, food and artistic expression. You can come with $20, eat, paint, drink and dance: pay the cover charge, have a two-martini dinner, paint rocks and tiles, and still have $3 left over for a tip.

The basic philosophy of ComeUnity, Cunningham explains, is “the trinity of club culture,” which incorporates music, food and art. Flyers for the event outline different guest DJs each month and a different menu (dessert included), as well as drink specials, the rock and tile-painting bar and a “food for thought” knowledge bar.

The knowledge bar offers flyers for various organizations, informational pamphlets and current events and books to look through. The tile and rock-painting area is set up near the door on the back patio, consisting of palm-sized smooth rocks and tiles, paintbrushes and acrylic paints. A fully catered dinner — with vegetarian and non-vegetarian options — is available, and there are lounge chairs and tables set up nearby to eat, drink and hang out. Live DJs spin mellow house music throughout the club, and there is a dance floor inside if the mood strikes.

“A byline that really resonates with me is ‘she gotta dance, he gotta eat and I gotta paint,’ or any twisting of ‘he’, ‘she’ and ‘I’ and eating, dancing, painting,” Cunningham says. “Let’s do it all together. That is actually on the back of all the flyers, because that is what it’s all about.”

Basically, a lot of different personalities and tastes can hang out in the same venue, and all have an equally good time.

“That is one of the things I love most,” says Cunningham. “It’s a complete juxtaposition of clientele there. People at the tile painting area … people who wouldn’t be communicating if they were standing in line to get a drink, now they’re talking because they’re painting. That is really, really cool.”

Cunningham does not set up the sound herself, though she does assert artistic control over the way music at ComeUnity is presented. The usual DJ turntables for the nightclub are up in a little crawl space above the dance floor, but Cunningham prefers the DJ to be visible.

“I don’t believe that is good energy for a DJ to spin way above the people,” she explains. “It is a transfer of energy — you’re transferring your music and the people are feeding back to you.… That is why we have the special sound set up for ComeUnity.”

There are even a few guys there, not a common sight at Six Degrees, which is indicative of ComeUnity. One of the DJs has a lot of male friends that come to hang out, then come back because they like it.

“People that love house music I find to be really open to anything,” Cunningham says. “We used to go to this club downtown.… It’s the kind of place where you go and you can dance with your girlfriend and nobody cares. That is what started it for me in San Diego. I love that about ComeUnity, that we (also) have a heterosexual crowd there.”

Cunningham started ComeUnity last May out of her desire to have a more enjoyable clubbing experience. She loves house music and loves to dance, but did not find the ideal mix of club elements she sought in any San Diego venue. So she started her own.

Cunningham has known one of the owners of Six Degrees for years. The ComeUnity event actually started as a one-off evening, a birthday party for a friend, but was so successful that Cunningham broached the subject of making it a recurring event at Six Degrees.

“It was a thought that maybe I could do [ComeUnity] for a few months, and now I’m looking at it as maybe I can do it for a few years,” says Cunningham.

Six Degrees has not had a Saturday night event for years. “[I]n the gay community, traditionally we’ve had a very structured Friday night, this is the place, Saturday night, this is the place,” explains Cunningham.

It has been just this year that Six Degrees has decided to open up its Saturday nights to various club events. In an effort to encourage new clientele, the owners decided that every Saturday would be different. With each Saturday night drawing a different crowd, it is difficult to compare ComeUnity’s turnout to that of the other club nights. It is safe to say, then, that all the people at ComeUnity are there expressly for the event itself. Word of mouth is also causing an upswing in turnout at ComeUnity.

“It is original, smart, fun, has something for everyone,” says Danielle Lo Presti of Say It Records. “[It] is multi-dimensional, affordable, and supports indie business.… I’d love to see her get the support and endorsement she deserves.”

Cunningham starts preparations on Friday nights by making the desserts and cooks the main dishes on Saturday — both a vegetarian and non-vegetarian option. The rum cake is a favorite among the ComeUnity regulars.

“The rum cake has its own personality right now,” says Cunningham. “A friend of mine’s aunt was in town and she only spoke Italian. I gave her a slice of rum cake and she was going on about how I should work in a patisserie.… I do the rum cake every month because that’s what people know, and then a different menu, and I’m trying to incorporate a different dessert each month.”

ComeUnity is also a venue to expand Yum3, Cunningham’s in-home dining business, which she started in October 2002. Cunningham has long been interested in owning her own business. She is a computer engineer by trade, having served in the Navy for eight years as a cryptographic communications technician, and decided that she did not want to spend the rest of her life sitting in front of a computer terminal.

“I spent a lot of time with myself thinking about what matters to me and what are my passions in this world,” she says. “Basically, I came up with music, food and art are my passions.”

Though she traveled extensively while in the Navy — living in Guam, Bahrain and England before settling in San Diego — her flair for cooking and new cuisine was already well-developed by that time. Raised in a family that encouraged the girls to learn to cook (“molding us to be good wives, apparently,” she laughs) she fell in love with cooking in her early teens, even introducing new dishes to her family, such as lasagna and jambalaya. She has always loved to throw dinner parties for her friends, and received encouragement from them when she decided to launch her own catering business. She looked into the catering business on the Internet and discovered a particular type of catering called “in-home dining” that combines elements used by personal chefs and by catering companies.

“I took (those) principles and morphed them into my own, which is going into the house for a dinner party for one evening,” says Cunningham, “like, come to your house, cook in your kitchen with your stuff, serve it to you and your guests, then clean up and go.”

She continues to support herself with IT projects for a local computer company, but is investing most of her time in expanding Yum3.

Cunningham would ultimately like to have her own cooking show on public access that incorporates aspects found at ComeUnity. When asked, she said she would love to see ComeUnity expand to other clubs and other nights of the week, even expand to other cities, but will roll with whatever opportunities for ComeUnity and Yum3 develop.

The next ComeUnity is Dec. 6, from 9:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. Cover is $5, including free rocks and tiles to paint and take home. A full meal (famous rum cake included) is $7, and there are $3 martinis all night. Check it out.