Town to close on July 1, 2018
Popular nightlife venue to be turned into apartment complex
After more than a decade in business, the popular nightclub Town Danceboutique will close its doors. But don’t mourn just yet — the end date is Sunday, July 1, 2018, and the venue promises to offer a year of “remarkable events to help Town go out in the same manner in which it arrived.”
Located at 2009 8th St. NW, in the center of the Shaw neighborhood, the two-tiered nightclub has served as a venue a host of community events and fundraisers, as well as its regular weekend offerings, which include a massively popular Friday and Saturday night drag show, helmed by Lena Lett and featuring such local drag luminaries as Ba’Naka Devereaux, Shequita Lee, and Tatiyanna. Town is known for introducing patrons to some of the best DJs the world has to offer, and it has served as a D.C. debut spot for dozens of national and international spinmeisters. It’s also a major hub for the bear community, hosting a massively packed Bear Happy Hour every Friday night. The addition of an elegant, large-scale patio two years ago expanded the club’s capacity even further.
Town’s owners released a statement confirming that the club would be closing in order to make way for an apartment complex, the result of the building’s purchase by the Jefferson Apartment Group last year. The statement, first issued on the venue’s Facebook page, and followed by an email to its listserv, reads as follows:
It has been our privilege to own and operate Town and to have worked with an incredible group of employees in various capacities that have helped make the club such a significant part of D.C.’s LGBTQ community. We are proud to have produced countless events that have entertained hundreds of thousands of partygoers.
We are proud to have hosted a multitude of fundraising events that have helped so many community groups, associations, and organizations. We are proud that the club has become a destination for nights where our community has celebrated the high of marriage equality and mourned the low of Pulse nightclub,” the statement continues. “We are proud that we are likely the first place many people heard a Lady Gaga song or experienced a RuPaul’s Drag Race drag queen. And we are most proud to be the place many people first felt comfortable being who they are and the place many in our community felt the most safe expressing themselves.
For the next year, we will be presenting a multitude of remarkable events to help Town go out in the same manner in which it arrived. We will not only be producing the same high-energy events that we always have with the top talent from across the country, but we will also be paying tribute to some of our favorite theme nights, performers, and DJs from our most memorable nights. Additionally, we will be calling on our community for input and ideas about performers you would want to see and djs you would want to hear at Town during the home stretch of events.We have truly appreciated the support we have received over the last decade from our neighborhood, our community, our staff, and our customers. Thank you!
We have truly appreciated the support we have received over the last decade from our neighborhood, our community, our staff, and our customers. Thank you!
Support Metro Weekly’s Journalism
These are challenging times for news organizations. And yet it’s crucial we stay active and provide vital resources and information to both our local readers and the world. So won’t you please take a moment and consider supporting Metro Weekly with a membership? For as little as $5 a month, you can help ensure Metro Weekly magazine and MetroWeekly.com remain free, viable resources as we provide the best, most diverse, culturally-resonant LGBTQ coverage in both the D.C. region and around the world. Memberships come with exclusive perks and discounts, your own personal digital delivery of each week’s magazine (and an archive), access to our Member's Lounge when it launches this fall, and exclusive members-only items like Metro Weekly Membership Mugs and Tote Bags! Check out all our membership levels here and please join us today!
You must be logged in to post a comment.