Unable to Meet Rent, Rhythm Cafe Closes for Good
The Rhythm Cafe has lost its lease, ending its former operator’s hopes of reviving the well-appointed, once-promising concert club in Santa Ana.
Michael Feder, the Cafe’s operator during a high-profile but brief run in 1992-93, had been trying to find investors who would back the 550-capacity club’s return. But the Cafe’s landlord was not about to wait any longer as rents went unpaid, and Feder’s company, Musicsphere Entertainment, was evicted from the Cafe building at 3503 S. Harbor Blvd. on Feb. 4.
Barrett W. McInerney, lawyer for the landlord, Santa Ana Harbor Real Estate, said that the eviction suit, filed in November, was settled the day before it was to go to trial in Orange County Superior Court.
McInerney said that Feder agreed to give up Musicsphere’s lease on the property. Musicsphere owes $69,738 in rent, McInerney said. Its lease called for a monthly rent of $8,500, according to court records.
Feder’s lawyer, Ronald Appel, said that Feder, Musicsphere’s vice president, is not personally liable for the back rent.
Before its incarnation as the Rhythm Cafe, the building housed a short-lived concert club called Hamptons and was also the site of the Harlequin Dinner Theater.
McInerney said that the building’s Los Angeles-based owner will seek a new tenant.
“We’ve heard all sorts of plans, from a concert hall to a burlesque house,” he said. “It’s a nice facility, but someone’s going to have to put some money into it. If the (economy) was a little bit better, I’m sure people would be leaping at it.”
The Rhythm Cafe succeeded in booking such high-profile names as B.B. King, the Neville Brothers and Los Lobos in a brief run from late October, 1992, to mid-March, 1993. But it ran into stiff competition from the better-established Coach House in San Juan Capistrano. Mounting losses prompted Curt Olson, a Newport Beach developer who was the Cafe’s financial backer, to pull out, effectively shutting the club down.
His partner, Feder, who had overseen day-to-day operations, spent the rest of 1993 seeking new investors. The Cafe reopened inDecember for one-shot concerts by hard-rock bands Tool and the Melvins.
Various promoters, including the major Los Angeles company Goldenvoice, expressed interest in running further shows. But by then, the landlord’s eviction suit was moving forward, and Feder was unable to line up the financing needed to pay off the Cafe’s debt and re-establish it as an ongoing business.
