The SideWalk Cafe was a

music venue A music venue is any location used for a concert or musical performance. Music venues range in size and location, from a small coffeehouse for folk music shows, an outdoor bandshell or bandstand or a concert hall to an indoor sports stadium. ...

and restaurant/cafe in East Village,

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

founded in 1985. It became a known venue for its underground music scene, and in particular, was known as being the center for

Anti-folk Anti-folk (sometimes referred to as unfolk) is a music genre that emerged in the 1980s in response to the remnants of the 1960s folk music scene. Anti-folk music was made to mock the perceived seriousness of the time's mainstream music scene, an ...

in the United States. It offered an eclectic mix of local and national acts ranging from DIY,

avant garde music Avant-garde music is music that is considered to be at the forefront of innovation in its field, with the term "avant-garde" implying a critique of existing aesthetic conventions, rejection of the status quo in favor of unique or original elemen ...

indie rock Indie rock is a subgenre of rock music that originated in the United States, United Kingdom and New Zealand from the 1970s to the 1980s. Originally used to describe independent record labels, the term became associated with the music they produ ...

, and

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...

pop music Pop music is a genre of popular music that originated in its modern form during the mid-1950s in the United States and the United Kingdom. The terms ''popular music'' and ''pop music'' are often used interchangeably, although the former descri ...

and

electronic music Electronic music is a genre of music that employs electronic musical instruments, digital instruments, or circuitry-based music technology in its creation. It includes both music made using electronic and electromechanical means ( electro ...

. The venue also hosted poetry readings, comedy and live-band karaoke. The Local East Village, at the time part of

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

, referred to the SideWalk Cafe and its music scene as a "gift to the neighborhood". A number of well-known acts performed at the Sidewalk at the beginning of their career including Regina Spektor, Lana Del Rey,

Hamell on Trial Edward James "Ed" Hamell, performing as Hamell on Trial, is an American punk rock, anti-folk, spoken word musician, described by Righteous Babe Records as "loud, fast music informed by politics, passion, energy and intelligence, played by a guy ...

, Lach, The Moldy Peaches. The Sidewalk Cafe was also home to an

open mic An open mic or open mike (shortened from "open microphone") is a live show at a venue such as a coffeehouse, nightclub, comedy club, strip club, or pub, usually taking place at night, in which audience members may perform on stage whether t ...

night that was one of the oldest and largest traditional open mics in the city, garnering the name "the king of NYC open-mic nights." The open mic was founded by Lach and subsequently run by Somer Bingham. It also hosted the bi-annual New York Antifolk Festival, which featured the largest gathering of anti-folk musicians in the nation. Artists that performed regularly at the Sidewalk Cafe included: Elastic No-No Band, Dots Will Echo,

Alan Merrill Alan Merrill (born Allan Preston Sachs; February 19, 1951 – March 29, 2020) was an American vocalist, guitarist and songwriter. In the early 1970s, he was one of the few resident foreigners to achieve pop star status in Japan. He was the write ...

, John S. Hall, Jeffrey Lewis,

Peter Dizozza Peter William Dizozza (born 5 September 1958) is an American music composer who also produces supplemental material as a writer, pianist, performer, photographer, and filmmaker. Since 2000 he has been the director of the WAH Theater at the Willi ...

and

Schwervon! Schwervon! is a two-piece American indie rock band. The band members are Matt Roth ( Major Matt Mason USA) on electric guitar and Nan Turner on drums; the pair share singing duties. They started the band in 1999 on the Lower East Side of New ...

. Sidewalk's last weekend was Feb 23-24, 2019, after which it closed.

References

{{East Village, Manhattan Nightclubs in Manhattan Music venues in Manhattan Drinking establishments in Manhattan East Village, Manhattan 1985 establishments in New York City