Four months after it closed, iconic South Side music venue Club Cafe has been sold and will reopen this summer, the new owners announced Monday.
The co-founders of Pittsburgh-based artist- and event-management business Keystone Artist Connect purchased the club from longtime owner Michael Sanders.
Club Cafe, which opened in 1999, hosted local and national acts, including emerging talents, old favorites and hard-touring regional bands, from future star John Mayer to Tori Amos, Brandi Carlile, Norah Jones, Frank Black and Billy Strings. The intimate, 150-capacity venue played an outsized role in the local much scene.
Keystone co-founder Maddy Lafferty said while there would be some changes, Club Cafe will remain much the same in terms of atmosphere and the acts it books.
"We're definitely going to keep the intimate performance vibe, also adding DJ residencies and events supporting the queer community and hip hop and punk, and we're gonna have a little bit of all genres in there," Lafferty said. She said drag shows, including a Sunday brunch, were also a possibility.
Lafferty declined to discuss the terms of the deal.
She said she and business partners including Keystone co-founder Danielle Mashuda contacted Sanders last fall, soon after he announced he'd be closing the club.
"We've all been to so many important shows at that venue and I just sent him an email saying hey I'm so sorry to hear that it's closing, we'd love to continue your legacy, let me know if you'd be open to chatting about passing it on to us," she said.
"I grew up going to shows there," Lafferty added. "My mom's law firm was actually right above the cigar shop next door."
Some of her own favorite shows there included concerts by The Dip, Illiterate Light and November Blue.
Buying the club "was very much a full circle for all of us," Lafferty said.
Other partners include musician Read Connolly, who has toured with country star Zach Bryan; Kristen Whitlinger, owner of Two Wands Design; and musician and bartender Elliot Sussman, who played his own first show at a professional music venue at Club Cafe in 2007.
One planned change at the club is the addition of a daytime coffee house.
"It's going to be an 8-to-3 or 9-to-4 type of thing, and then we'll have our bar manager come in and switch it over for live music events at night," she said.
The reopening is slated for "late June or early July," she said.
"We're super honored and hope to make everyone really proud of what we're doing there," she said.
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