Manayunk music venue The Grape Room abruptly closes

Manayunk bar and music venue The Grape Room, a long-running impartial stage for reside music and comedy exhibits, introduced this weekend that it has shut down efficient instantly.

The bar at 105 Grape St., simply off Predominant Avenue, has existed in numerous types for the reason that late Nineteen Eighties and served as one of many metropolis’s prime reserving areas for native gigs. In newer years, it had provided reside music 5 nights every week, together with its in style open mics, and featured full band showcases on weekends. The venue’s ultimate present was final Friday, headlined by psych-rock band Slomo Sapiens.

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In an Instagram put up on Sunday, The Grape Room provided thanks for all the recollections on the venue over time.

“We didn’t assume the day would come the place we go away one of many loves of our life,” the put up says. “They are saying, ‘the present should go on,’ however immediately it is not going to.”

On Monday afternoon, the Grape Room’s signal pictured within the put up not hung from the surface of the constructing. No cause was given for the closure, and nobody on the bar may very well be reached for remark Monday. The Instagram put up signifies the bar’s proprietor hopes to revive The Grape Room sooner or later, in some type, and resume internet hosting live shows via its Dangerous Habits Reserving arm.

The Grape Room initially operated because the Grape Avenue Pub within the Nineties and early 2000s. That spawned a second, bigger Grape Avenue Pub venue that had operated for a number of years a number of blocks away at 4100 Predominant St. That venue closed in 2008 and have become the bar Mad River Manayunk, which shut down through the COVID-19 pandemic. The unique proprietor of the Grape Avenue Pub, Stephen Sendzik, died in 2022.

The latest model of The Grape Room opened in 2010, returning to its unique location. It was led by Brian “Scooter” Hassinger, the previous drummer of native bands Stargazer Lily and The Dirges. The Grape Room’s principal flooring downstairs had a capability of 150 folks, with area for an additional 55 folks on the second flooring.

Hassinger as soon as wrote in regards to the many notable acts which have handed via The Grape Room — in all of its types — in a bit for Manayunk.com journal. The unique Grape Room hosted the likes of Jeff Buckley, G-Love, Guster, Dispatch, Amos Lee, Derek Vehicles and Silvertide. On the newer Grape Room, The Lumineers performed a present earlier than they emerged as one of many greatest people acts of the final decade.

“(A) little-known band took the stage earlier than 20 folks,” Hassinger wrote. “All of them by now, I am positive, have bragged to everybody who’d hear that they noticed The Lumineers earlier than they blew up.”

Jon Tuleya/PhillyVoice

Music venue The Grape Room in Manayunk abruptly closed over the weekend, however an indication on the constructing’s entrance window nonetheless displayed the Bandcamp web page for Silver Information the place followers of native music can hearken to recordings of the reside performances hosted by the bar.

Commenters on The Grape Room’s Instagram put up expressed gratitude for the venue and for Scooter’s function within the native music scene over time.

“This place is a lot greater than only a bar/membership. This can be a homestead for misfits, geeks, punks, cool children, uncool children, metallic heads, music lovers of all form,” a former worker wrote. “I’ve made a number of the greatest buddies on this planet at this bar. Working right here had introduced a lot pleasure into my life and I’ll always remember what scooter and workers has accomplished for me and the neighborhood.”

The Grape Room now joins the listing of impartial music venues which have closed in Philly during the last decade or so: Fairmount’s North Star Bar, South Avenue’s Legendary Dobbs, South Philly’s Boot & Saddle, and West Powelton’s The Blockley, amongst others.

“That is like watching the tree you climbed as a baby get chopped down,” one other Instagram commenter stated of The Grape Room’s closure.

Monday afternoon a paper signal was nonetheless caught to the surface of considered one of The Grape Room’s entrance home windows, directing followers of the bar’s reside exhibits to the Bandcamp web page of Silverwood Information, the place the performances could be streamed free of charge.