“Our little corner of Cleveland”: Spotlight Cleveland shines a light on local music scene
- emadden56
- Dec 6, 2024
- 5 min read
On the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving, a small corner bar on the west side of Cleveland was filled with the sounds of rock, blues and jam band music. It was jam night at Spotlight Cleveland, and the tiny, wood-paneled bar – what the owner calls a “micro venue” – was full of people. As the night went on and the cozy space filled up, people spilled out onto the patio, where they huddled together in the cold, drizzling rain and carried on talking and laughing.
In the past year, two music lovers on Cleveland’s west side, Corrine Henahan and John Dewey, have transformed what used to be a smoke-filled, run-down corner bar at Madison Ave. and W. 87th St. into a loving tribute to the local music scene. The project is a direct result of their own grit and determination. After falling in love with the building and buying it at the height of the pandemic, they put in two years of sweat equity before reopening it as Spotlight Cleveland.
Henahan said after seeing the listing for the old Diane’s bar, she immediately told Dewey, her partner, that they had to see it. “He said, ‘Why are we looking at a bar?’” she recounted. “I said, ‘Just trust me, we gotta go see this.’ As soon as we saw the outside area, we were both sold. It was cute. It felt like every place your dad ever drank when you were a kid.”
They scooped up the commercial property for a reasonable sum because the realtor was incorrectly marketing it as residential, so it hadn’t yet gotten much foot traffic. “And in the description where you might say ‘the refrigerator is going to stay’ it said it comes with a D1, D2, and D3 liquor license,” Henahan said. “It just felt like they didn’t know what they had.”
Corrine Henahan behind the bar at Spotlight Cleveland.
Today, Spotlight Cleveland offers live music seven days a week, from techno to blues to jazz and open mic nights. There’s also a small menu of home-cooked food, including vegan and gluten-free options. As Henahan puts it, “We’re never gonna offer arugula and duck confit, as much as I love those things, but we make a killer homemade veggie burger.” That outdoor space they fell in love with has been transformed into a beautiful back patio with outdoor seating, a fire pit, and light projections featuring a martini glass and musical notes on the side of the building courtesy of Dewey, who is a mechanical engineer and electrician by trade.
After Henahan and Dewey bought the building in 2021, they set to work fixing it up. “It felt like it hadn’t been cleaned in 25 years,” she said. They refinished the classic back bar, removed a drop ceiling to reveal a 1920s era tin ceiling that was in good condition, added a new floor, and added a dark stain to the classic wood paneling. “I tell people we spent every dollar we had to buy the property, then had no money to fix it up, so we did everything ourselves,” said Henahan. Because Dewey is an electrician by trade, he was able to do all of the electric and plumbing.
During a recent visit, Henahan stood behind the bar and gestured toward the impressively stocked back bar. “It was covered in five layers of glossy black paint,” she said. “I spent months sanding it down and refinishing it. It’s a beautiful mahogany back bar. It was built into this place when it was built in 1920. To be able to afford this piece? Never. But now it’s gorgeous.”
The couple’s lofty goal was always restoration, not renovation, she said: “It would have been very easy to rip out everything that was chipped and damaged and just put modern stuff in. I wanted it to feel like it had always been like this.”
Henahan didn’t always aspire to own a bar. She’s worked in the music scene for the past 27 years and has always been a music lover, though, so when the opportunity came along it seemed like a natural fit. When she was in college in the ’90s, she got a job selling merchandise for the jam band Ekoostic Hookah. Eventually, that turned into a full-time gig touring with them. “I was an English major and really didn’t have any direction and loved being around music,” Henahan said. “I figured out there were real careers in music in these support capacities.”
After touring with bands and working in the restaurant industry – she managed the original Happy Dog from 2003-2008, before the current owners took it over – Henahan struck out on her own, buying screen printing and embroidery equipment and starting a merch company called Merch Girl. Today, she makes merch for local bands as well as some national bands like OAR, an indie rock band. “I was making money but also it was a way of supporting musicians making a living,” she said.
Henehan said that the reception for Spotlight Cleveland has been great so far. Although there are a lot of music venues in Cleveland, she commented, “I think we occupy a space that isn’t overly saturated – what I call the micro venue.” With a capacity of just 50 people (it’s been known to pack in a few more), Spotlight definitely fits in that category. Regular patrons have compared it to the late, great Barking Spider as well as the original Nighttown.
The musically-inclined couple has created a welcoming space with a diverse music lineup. They’ve recently featured national acts like DJ Logic and folk musician David Mayfield, as well as hosting a locally-based Senegalese drum group during jam night. The venue’s schedule includes Sunday house and techno DJ’s, Monday acoustic jams, Tuesday comedy nights, Wednesday full band jam nights, Thursday rotating jams, and Friday and Saturday featured slots for local musicians (check out their Instagram and Facebook pages for more info).
Henahan’s long-term vision is to create a small stage in the front of the venue and renovate the rear garage with an outdoor bar and summer concert stage. Although it’s sometimes grueling working a day job and tending Spotlight at night – often till 1 am – Henahan said it’s worth it: “Anything I could complain about is the direct result of one of my wishes being fulfilled. It’s like one of those genie parables where you get your wish fulfilled but it has a hidden cost. I have to stop myself from complaining. I have a glut of blessings, so I’m just trying to manage that.”
While Henahan didn’t necessarily anticipate owning a bar, she’s glad they took the plunge. “People say, ‘Was it your dream to open a bar?’” she said. “No, it wasn’t, we just found this diamond in the dirt. I said, ‘There’s no way I’m going to leave it there. I’m going to pick it up.’”
Even though she never thought she’d be doing this, local music has been a calling her whole life, so it just fits. “I love local music and local art,” she said. “I’d rather see a new band that just wrote songs that are not polished than go to see Billy Joel or Elton John. If we can help sustain a new band for a couple of gigs a year … that’s the whole concept, it’s a spotlight on Cleveland.”
