Goodbye, Vandals Punk Rock Club, hello…Jock Bar?
It’s official: Vandals Punk Rock Club is on its way out, despite the game attempt by that venue’s bartender and manager, Michelle Wyssman, to buy the bar and music venue at 3740 Broadway through a grassroots, community-sourced GoFundMe campaign to raise $10,000 to help her purchase the space. (That campaign, still posted on the GoFundMe site, had raised only $798 since being launched in January.)
Yesterday, Jeff Edmondson and Eric Christensen, owners of the Hamburger Mary’s restaurant and the Industry bar, in the Uptown Theater building at 3700 Broadway, signed a contract to purchase the building from Butch Rigby, the building’s owner. They will take over the nightclub space this spring. Their plan is to turn the venue into a gay sports bar.
The proposed sports bar is without a name, though Edmondson and Christensen have a list of possibilities, including Jock Bar and Bats & Balls.
There was, until a few years ago, another gay sports bar on this stretch of Broadway: Outabounds, at 3601 Broadway. It closed in 2012, after a rocky run. Is midtown ready for another gay sports club?
“We have a solid, solid track record,” Edmondson says. “We have a great business plan and a fresh concept. If we didn’t think we could succeed there, we wouldn’t be doing this deal.”
Edmondson says he thinks part of the problem at Outabounds was that the emphasis wasn’t fully on sports.
“You can’t walk into a bar hoping to watch a football game,” he says, “and have all the TV monitors tuned to RuPaul’s Drag Race.”
According to a local realtor, Michelle Wyssman had been subleasing the nightclub space from a previous tenant. Edmondson says he’s willing to work with Wyssman during the transition: “I understand they’re part of a punk festival coming to town in May and are committed to it.”
Edmondson says they plan to renovate the tiny kitchen, bringing it up to code, and begin offering food service again.
“Right now, there’s not even a dishwashing machine in the building,” Edmondson says. “We may have to be creative and serve food just like they do in sports stadiums.”
