Before COVID-19 shut Kansas City bars, fire closed Davey’s Uptown. Can it come back?
Every music venue in Kansas City is closed due to the coronavirus, but the local scene continues to mourn one in particular.
On March 14, a fire gutted much of Davey’s Uptown Rambler’s Club, a fixture on the local music scene, beloved as much for its dive bar aesthetic as its commitment to showcasing veteran acts and up-and-comers alike.
But now the owner of the 70-year-old business at 3402 Main St. is faced with how to move forward when society is stalled.
“People can’t interact with others, so they reflect on what they had,” says Davey’s owner Michele Markowitz. “There’s a physical closeness of being with friends and drinking and listening to music. I think people have looked fondly back upon that since we’re in such a restrictive mode at the present time.”
The good news is that Markowitz plans on reopening. Eventually.
“It’s just a waiting game,” says Markowitz, who took over the club in 1986 from her father, Davey Markowitz.
“Everything is closed. I can’t get anything done. I’m just trying to compile things to make future decisions.”
The two-room venue suffered severe damage to its main stage area, including, she said, the loss of the “classic pictures and baseball memorabilia” that helped give the bar its earthy hometown vibe.
“The other side is mainly smoke damage. We’re hoping the city allows us to reopen and do live music on that side while we’re rebuilding,” she says.
Although the official report is not yet released, the cause of the fire has been confirmed: “The area of origin was a cooler under the bar,” says Kansas City Fire Department spokesman Jimmy Walker.
Markowitz contends that Davey’s was one of the oldest continuously operating businesses on Main Street, surpassed only by Reeves-Wiedeman plumbing. She started working at the club in 1979.
In the 1990s, Davey’s expanded into the space that was Jimmy’s and Mary’s Steak House, adding a larger second stage and a dance floor.
“I have so many favorite memories, but my fondest ones are of working with my dad,” she says.
She says her mother and father met at Davey’s — Mom was a waitress at the steak house. “My dad always told me it was love at first sight,” Markowitz says.
For her, the reason the place remains special to the community isn’t just the fine music that emanated from its stages for decades.
“It’s the people who made the music. They made those memories; we just were there facilitating it,” she says. “I always thought of myself as having the best job in the entire world. No one could have as great a job — to listen to music and talk to wonderful people. Our customers are so fantastic.”
Many of those customers and performers concur. The day of the fire brought forth a cascade of memories and grief on social media.
“I’ve played thousands of different places over the years,” drummer Kliph Scurlock, a veteran of the bands Flaming Lips and Slackjaw, told The Star. “All but a handful blend together, but I can very vividly picture the inside of Davey’s right this second — and the outside, too, since we had to go out there to smoke.”
Markowitz says she’s already gathered the building’s original blueprints. She intends to use those to reconstruct the venue, with new architectural modifications to bring it up to 2020 code.
That’s the ideal plan, anyway.
“I’m 60 years old now, and I have to do what’s right for my future and my family,” Markowitz says. “I have to weigh everything when it comes to spending an awful lot of money. And I’ve also got to deal with the city. I love Kansas City, but it’s a lot of red tape downtown. It’s geared more to corporate entities than to small businesses.”
She adds, “But I don’t want it to sound like we’re not going to reopen. I can guarantee you one thing: It won’t be for lack of trying.”
Jon Niccum is a filmmaker, freelance writer and author of “The Worst Gig: From Psycho Fans to Stage Riots, Famous Musicians Tell All.”