After 25 years of live shows and dance parties, the owner of The Satellite, the music venue in Silver Lake known for hosting local musicians early in their careers, announced today that the venue will reopen as a bar/restaurant, in an attempt to survive these unprecendented economic times.
"To all of the Satellite fans out there, I am sorry to say that we will no longer be doing live shows or dance parties," owner Jeff Wolfram wrote in an Instagram post. "We would like to thank you for all the support you have shown us over the years."
The Satellite closed on March 12 and canceled all upcoming shows due to the pandemic. The city, county and state ordered bars and clubs to shut down several days later. Because of that, according to the post, the venue suffered an unrecoverable financial loss.
"We can no longer afford to wait for the day we will be allowed to have shows again," Wolfram wrote. "If we do that, we will not have the money to continue and will be forced to close forever."
Instead, Wolfram will remove the stage and convert the venue into a restaurant, with outdoor seating in the parking lot. The process may be slow due to lack of funds, the post says, and will involve a complete redesign.
The Wolfram family bought the venue in 1968. It has since been a restaurant, a German beer garden, a 70s disco club with gay dance nights, and then eventually, Spaceland, where acts such as Silversun Pickups, Foo Fighters, Elliott Smith and Lady Gaga played some of their first shows.
Spaceland Presents still operates as a club promotion and events company, booking shows as the sister company for The Echo/Echoplex and The Regent Theater.
Wolfram urged fans to support NIVA, an organization that is trying to raise government support to save other independent music venues from permanent closure.
In May, we spoke with the owner of Largo, who is also involved with NIVA. Read more on that here.
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