Future venue hopes to attract local, national talent

By Chris Hagan
Review Staff Writer
Front Street in downtown Lake Orion is one of the shortest streets in the Village but in the past several years it has seen several makeovers.
From Bonsai Bobs turned Whiskey’s Bar, turned parking lot on the North side to Lucky’s Foods on the South side undergoing an extensive exterior make over.
Now, the owners of 20 Front Street – which is named after the building’s physical address and inside the former Ye Olde Stuff & Antiques building – are feverishly working to create a musically inspired social cafe and acoustic performance venue unlike anything in southeastern Michigan.
One of the managing partners, Allan Goetz, said the vision for 20 Front Street is to draw in local and national talent and present their music in an acoustic-only, unplugged capacity. Something he said doesn’t exist anywhere in the Metro Detroit area.
“The thought on it is that there’s really nowhere around here where people can go enjoy music without hearing a lot of noise in the background. The closest place like that is the Ark in Ann Arbor where it’s a true listening room,” he said. “We want to honor the artist as well and some, we feel, will be coming from a long ways and they’re sharing their music and we want them to connect with the audience in a unique way.”
Goetz, a 21-year resident of Lake Orion, is not alone in his quest to bring a new music experience to the area. He’s teamed up with several individuals who have a foothold in the music and marketing industry. Bryan Lowe is the Creative Director for Rochester-based, Entrestorm Design Studio and Scott Loudon who’s the founder of The Ashram Recording Studio in Ortonville.
The social Cafe, meets listening room, meets creamery also is comprised of downtown Lake Orion resident Timmy Kelly and investors Mike Linc and Jay Richardson.
The music venue portion will feature five rows of seating capable of accommodating 100 people. The six-man team tracked down antique church pews from an 1893 church in Caro, that was being torn down. According to Goetz and Lowe, and following the musical direction of Loudon, the curved pews help reflect the music of the artist.
With sound quality as the driver for design, the group is making sure no wall is parallel with another wall and specific types of woods are being selected that best reflect sound. Both the stage and back of the venue will have curved walls and they’re adding adjustable sound panels that can be opened for an artist with low-volume vocals and instruments.
“There’s going to be a strict listening-only policy in the music venue because when an artist is acoustic and unplugged, it needs to be quiet,” Goetz said. “So unlike a bar or a concert venue where there’s a lot going on, there’s not going to be food or beverage service inside the music venue.”
The decision to center the music venue around unplugged, which is performing without the aid of electric amplification, was to get back to the basics of music performance where the artist is solely reliant on their own vocals and instrumental skills. The group behind 20 Front Street is looking to showcase the vocals of artists who currently don’t have venue dedicated for that sort of entertainment.
But beyond the sound quality, they’re hoping the music venue will create an intimate music experience where the audience can connect and engage with the artist. Performances will be recorded and broadcast live so fans of the artist can watch anywhere in the world.
“We’ll be able to live stream performances so bands that come from Nashville or anywhere else will have the opportunity to still connect with their fans,” Lowe said. “There’s actually a lot of bands now have gone out to do acoustic shows because there’s been so much in the [music] industry in terms of dubbing in music and being electronically altered.”
Connected to the music venue will be an eclectic social cafe serving ABeanToGo coffee and offering a true “tea library.” Similar to Eli Tea in Birmingham and SoCRA Tea in Midtown Detroit, there will be an emphasis on tea and increasing and introducing the Orion area to a wider tea culture. Their tea library will feature teas from all over the world and allow the customer to smell the aromas of various teas.
The cafe will also feature a seasonal creamery specializing in house made ice creams and custards which will be made from a process using -321 degree liquid nitrogen. Macomb-based Phil McLatcher from Itty Bitty Bites will be crafting cheese cake bites and pastries.
Goetz also plans to have an extensive vinyl record collection on hand with record players connected to personal headphone sets. Their merchandise area, like their artist selection, will be unique in the sense that it won’t be typical purchasable items one may see at a bar. At 20 Front Street they’ll have literature and photography books autographed by top musicians throughout history.
“I hope we’re able to create a place of unity and inspiration and not be a 2 a.m., 3 a.m. hang out that’s a menace. We really want to maintain a community outlook,” Lowe said. “We wanted it to be not only a spill over place for intermissions but a gathering place,” Lowe said. “We wanted to make a great social space also for people to see each other and have conversations.”
Before any of the plans can take place, the partners must first confront the issues plaguing the building. The south wall that overlooks Children’s Park will be the iconic viewing window for the social cafe and will have to be taken down and rebuilt. All wiring, plumbing, and heating and cooling has to be replaced and the building must be retrofitted with a fire suppression system.
Goetz said the project has come with its fair share of surprises like a garden hose supplying the building with water from the service line.
Much of the sub floor is being replaced and brought up to current building code but Lowe and Goetz said much of it will be repurposed into furniture. The overall shape of the building will remain the same and the garage door look of the street front will remain as well but will feature a built in window and the garage door components will be removed.
“We’re basically starting from scratch but we’re keeping the main bones of it,” Goetz said. “We’re keeping the trusses in the roof in place and in-fact we’re going to keep the open ceiling concept in the social cafe and showcase that.”
While emptying the buildings contents they found a tag connecting 20 Front Street with the building history. It was originally a dairy establishment in the 1930‘s owned by Cleon Middleton and called Middleton’s Dairy. After the dairy equipment was sold to Edward Porritt in 1947, Middleton remained in the building selling ice cream.
Goetz is hoping to open at the end of summer this year and despite the work ahead he’s excited in what 20 Front Street could offer the community.
“We’ve been involved in the music scene but just haven’t done anything with it locally in a while so we really just wanted to bring that to Lake Orion,” he said. “I think this is a unique time in Lake Orion where there are these young, talented people that are singer songwriters that really just don’t have a venue like this to perform.”

8 responses to “Future venue hopes to attract local, national talent”

  1. I have visited twice recently for shows… What a amazing surprise. Although everything is not fully in place for the entire building, I love what is done so far. I am mostly interested in the listening room experience they have to offer. This is by far, my favorite concert venue ever. So small, comfortable and unique. I appreciate how the people at these shows respect the artist and others by being extra quite, you then can take in the dynamic range of sound the artist and their instrument have to offer. Even though it takes me 1.5 – 2 hours to get there, I am looking forward to attending years of shows there ! Keep up the inspiring work guys!

    • Thank you for posting. I, too, really enjoy the atmosphere and performances. The tea room should be open soon and the creamery located in the lower level should be open this spring. The owners are shooting for April. You can visit, listen to music, have a cup of tea/Kombucha, and then have desert.

  2. After study a few of the blog posts on your website now, and I truly like your way of blogging.
    I bookmarked it to my bookmark website list and will be checking back soon. Pls check out my site as well and
    let me know what you believe.

  3. I am very excited. The Ark is just too far away for most shows. Having an Ark like experience within walking distance from my house will be awesome.

    But…..no alcohol? Really?

  4. I visited the bldg just the other day, took a tour all I can say is Wow when opened will be great can’t wait….

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *