March 18, 2024
Jon Tuleya/PhillyVoice
The Grape Room, mainstay in Manayunk known as a music venue, announced that it has closed during he weekend. The bar has had multiple owners since late 1980s, and was a favorite spot for local bands and open mic nights.
Manayunk bar and music venue The Grape Room, a long-running independent stage for live music and comedy shows, announced this weekend that it has shut down effective immediately.
The bar at 105 Grape St., just off Main Street, has existed in various forms since the late 1980s and served as one of the city's top booking spaces for local gigs. In more recent years, it had offered live music five nights a week, including its popular open mics, and featured full band showcases on weekends. The venue's final show was last Friday, headlined by psych-rock band Slomo Sapiens.
In an Instagram post on Sunday, The Grape Room offered thanks for all of the memories at the venue over the years.
"We didn’t think the day would come where we leave one of the loves of our life," the post says. "They say, 'the show must go on,' but today it will not."
On Monday afternoon, the Grape Room's sign pictured in the post no longer hung from the outside of the building. No reason was given for the closure, and no one at the bar could be reached for comment Monday. The Instagram post indicates the bar's owner hopes to revive The Grape Room in the future, in some form, and resume hosting concerts through its Bad Habits Booking arm.
The Grape Room originally operated as the Grape Street Pub in the 1990s and early 2000s. That spawned a second, larger Grape Street Pub venue that had operated for several years a few blocks away at 4100 Main St. That venue closed in 2008 and became the bar Mad River Manayunk, which shut down during the COVID-19 pandemic. The original owner of the Grape Street Pub, Stephen Sendzik, died in 2022.
The most recent version of The Grape Room opened in 2010, returning to its original location. It was led by Brian “Scooter” Hassinger, the former drummer of local bands Stargazer Lily and The Dirges. The Grape Room's main floor downstairs had a capacity of 150 people, with space for another 55 people on the second floor.
Hassinger once wrote about the many notable acts that have passed through The Grape Room — in all of its forms — in a piece for Manayunk.com magazine. The original Grape Room hosted the likes of Jeff Buckley, G-Love, Guster, Dispatch, Amos Lee, Derek Trucks and Silvertide. At the newer Grape Room, The Lumineers played a show before they emerged as one of the biggest folk acts of the last decade.
"(A) little-known band took the stage before 20 people," Hassinger wrote. "All of them by now, I'm sure, have bragged to everyone who'd listen that they saw The Lumineers before they blew up."
Music venue The Grape Room in Manayunk abruptly closed over the weekend, but a sign on the building's front window still displayed the Bandcamp page for Silver Records where fans of local music can listen to recordings of the live performances hosted by the bar.
Commenters on The Grape Room's Instagram post expressed gratitude for the venue and for Scooter's role in the local music scene over the years.
"This place is so much more than just a bar/club. This is a homestead for misfits, geeks, punks, cool kids, uncool kids, metal heads, music lovers of all kind," a former employee wrote. "I have made some of the best friends in the world at this bar. Working here had brought so much joy into my life and I’ll never forget what scooter and staff has done for me and the neighborhood."
The Grape Room now joins the list of independent music venues that have closed in Philly over the last decade or so: Fairmount's North Star Bar, South Street's Legendary Dobbs, South Philly's Boot & Saddle, and West Powelton's The Blockley, among others.
"This is like watching the tree you climbed as a child get chopped down," another Instagram commenter said of The Grape Room's closure.
Monday afternoon a paper sign was still stuck to the outside of one of The Grape Room's front windows, directing fans of the bar's live shows to the Bandcamp page of Silverwood Records, where the performances can be streamed for free.
