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The dining room at Noodles Italian Restaurant is lively and buzzes with the lunch crowd chatter. Like every Thursday, in a few hours the chic, dimly lit room will be throbbing with the latest top 40 hits, barely recognizable under the strobe lights. Gone will be the quiet lunch patrons, they will be replaced by a younger crowd, thirsty for designer Martinis and danceable music. Noodles Italian Restaurant will morph into its wilder, party loving alter ego: Nooshi Lounge. The man responsible for the transformation is sitting in front of me. His name is DJ 007 and he studies the menu carefully before ordering a few sushi rolls.

“I’m learning to appreciate sushi,” he says matter-of-factly. Despite having spent many years spinning records and entertaining the sophisticated New York party crowd, DJ 007 is anything but pretentious. Soft-spoken and mellow, he likes to stay true to his Jamaican heritage. There are only two things DJ 007 doesn’t want to tell me: his real name and his age. As for the rest, no topic is taboo. He admits — and not in a shy way — that two of his favorite things in life are listening to country music and watching spaghetti western movies.

“Have you ever seen them?” He asks, laughing.

And over jokes about ‘They Called Him Trinity’ and the always-present saloon brawls, we start eating our food, talking about Naples, its music scene and being a DJ in a town where clubs are not very popular.

Daily News: How would you describe your music, your style?

DJ 007: I’m not really flashy with my style. It’s real simple. But I know how to read a crowd. You have DJs that pay attention to the technical stuff and don’t really watch the crowd. I’m the opposite: I read the crowd and I try to get people to participate. I like to call my flow “the element of surprise.” If I’m playing a song and I bring in the next song, I’m waiting to hear the crowd go “AHH!” I love that.

DN: What about your musical influences?

DJ 007: I was also into music, I loved it ever since I was a little kid, growing up in Jamaica. My grandma used to play Patsy Cline, Skeeter Davis, stuff like that. That’s the music that I would listen to. My whole musical background goes from country to hip hop, from rock to jazz. A little crazy, right? And that shows in my DJing style. It’s what I call open format. I can do rock, hip hop and this new genre called “mash up” — you take two different kinds of music, like hip hop and rock, and you mix them together.

Sometimes I put in a little bit of house music, that’s the music I started spinning in New York, and then some reggae, salsa, merengues everything.

DN: Now, I’ve heard you’re from New York. How did you get to Naples?

DJ 007: Actually, I was born in Jamaica, but grew up in New York City. My parents bought a house in Port Charlotte, so I would come down and visit, but Port Charlotte was a little too slow, so when I decided to move to Florida, I decided to go to Orlando. I tried Miami at first, but it was so much like New York — too crazy. I wanted to try something a little bit slower, cleaner and nicer and Orlando was the perfect spot. Over there I met some people from a radio station from Fort Myers, 105.5 The Beat, and they offered me a job. It took me about six months to decide to take the job ... but, in the end, they made me a good offer, and I came down, and have been down here for six years now.

I’ve worked for the radio station for about three and a half years and then decided to go on my own. I’ve worked at Sway, at 1527 in Fort Myers, at the Beat Club, at Venu — too many clubs to even try and remember. And also I’ve done a lot of stuff out of town: parties for Nike, People Magazine, People Music Awards, stuff like that.

DN: So how did you get be a DJ? Was it something you always dreamed about?

DJ 007: Believe it or not, in New York I used to model. When I was 21, I used to work at this club, but not as a DJ. The DJ was (he chuckles) ... he was OK. So one day I went out and I bought some turning tables and I stayed home and I practiced and practiced and practiced. No one taught me how to be a DJ. I did it all on my own.

So I went to the club owner and told him “Listen, you have to let me DJ one night,” and he said no way. I was working in the coat room and I just kept thinking the DJ sucked. So I insisted. I told him he wouldn’t even have to pay me. And the first time he let me play he was amazed. He made me come back the week after that and that was it. That was the beginning.

DN: What’s the best thing about being a DJ?

DJ 007: It’s fun. I love playing. I love being in charge of an audience. I love that connection. When I’m playing and I see people out there having fun and dancing, that makes me feel good. It means that I’m doing my job and I’m doing it right. I’m the type of DJ who likes to stay busy. When people come up to me and want to talk to me I try to say hi, but I’m not the kind of DJ who takes breaks and dances with girls. I’m there working, I stay focused. I’m a working DJ.

DN: Do you use traditional tables or digital?

DJ 007: I love turn tables, but seems like every club here in Southwest Florida wants to use CD turn tables — and also, it’s kind of hard dragging the traditional turn tables around from club to club, so I just adapted. It kind of takes away from it a little bit, it makes it kind of lazy, because when you have a record on a turn table you’re constantly moving. ... When you have CDs, you don’t. But it is what it is. That’s the way it is here.

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If you go

DJ 007 spins records 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. Thursday nights at the Nooshi Lounge

(aka Noodles Italian Cafe & Sushi Bar), 1585 Pine Ridge Road, 592-0050