Venue news: Hotel Café to open intimate, second room

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File photograph of the Hotel Café's lounge area
File photograph of the Hotel Café's lounge area

The newest music venue in Hollywood will feel an awful lot like an old favorite.

The Hotel Café, the Cahuenga Boulevard beacon of good music, will open a new room in early February. It’s going to be called The Second Stage, and with a capacity of about 85, it will remind Hollywood long-timers of the Hotel Café prior to the 2004 expansion that increased its capacity to 165.

A longtime favorite at the singer-songwriter haven, Cary Brothers, will christen the Second Stage on Friday, Feb. 5. “I’m happy the little room is there to capture the intimacy of the OG Hotel Café,” he says.

The room is situated just south of the foyer at the Hotel Café in a space that used to house the venue’s offices and recording studio. Hotel Café co-founder Marko Shafer says plans for the new room have been in the works for about two years, but everything came together only recently. The room is not ready for its photographic close-up because of last-minute construction.

The calendars for the two rooms are on separate web pages, by the way: The Main Stage and The Second Stage.

The intimate space figures to help fill the void left by the Jan. 11 closure of Room 5, the La Brea Avenue venue that featured sometimes-magical songwriter nights.

► In other Hollywood news, Loaded Hollywood, the Hollywood Boulevard bar that booked bands in its annex, is losing that room, which catered to a lot of hard rock music. GM Fran DeAngelo announced recently on Loaded’s Facebook page: “We regret to inform you that our beloved music venue at Loaded will have to be closed down by the end of February. A decision made for us by the rising cost of rent and the refusal of the landlord to work with us to help us give the artist, of which this town was built on, a platform to fulfill their dreams.” Reporter Lina Lecaro had more in LA Weekly.