Feeling Last Concert's pain
The fire marshal strikes again: Vintage Lounge gets shut down for a night
Vintage Lounge was shut down on Friday night by the fire marshal. It's was backup a night later.Vintage Lounge/Facebook
Last Concert Cafe is dealing with getting up to code to increase its capacity,
The fire marshal has struck again. Popular Montrose spot Vintage Lounge was shut down Friday night for an overcapacity crowd, three weeks after Last Concert Cafe was temporarily shuttered for hosting several too-many happy hippies.
Vintage — a haven for Houston prep school grads known as much for its charity parties as its themed bashes and local rap performances — was up and running again Saturday night, when local rap duo Lil' Flip and Z-Ro performed a set for a standard-sized Saturday night crowd.
Owner Amir Ansari tells CultureMap he doesn't blame the marshal. "It's just part of the business, everyone gets shut down from time to time," says Ansari, noting that he's only been shut down five times in the four years he's been open.
Vintage's current capacity, including the patio, is 375 people. Ansari says he's working to resolve the issue to comfortably hold his usual Friday and Saturday night crowds and hopes to raise Vintage's capacity closer to 700 (when the bar was built in 1975 it had an indoor capacity of 65, to give you an idea of how fluid these things are. Last Concert's was 49).
Last Concert — which is still open now with its official 49-person-allowed capacity — hopes to be up to code with an increased capacity this month.
In the meantime, things seem to be back to normal at Vintage. Hit it up for some Fusion Taco at two-for-one Tuesday, and don't worry — parking abounds.
