Modified On June 12, 2008
One year ago, we posted about the demise of the Comix Cafe in Buffalo, NY. The Buffalo Cafe crowds were tremendous and the club was nearly always packed. We’re not clear on why it went under, but we’re fairly certain it had nothing to do with business.
Now we have learned that the Comix Cafe in Rochester (no relation to the other Cafe) has also closed its doors, holding its last show– their open mike night– last night. We were told that this collapse was due to ineptitude on the part of the club’s proprietors, although that is subject to verification. Sounds plausible, though, as this club, like the similarly-named venue in Buffalo, was unable to stay in business despite healthy attendance.
Of course, we’re well aware that there’s far more to profitability than a headcount. But a club owner has to be some kind of incompetent to go under while packing the joint (or… there were other factors involved that we’re not aware of). We’ll probably never hear the full story.
Whatever the case, it seems to us (who, we hasten to point out, are not graduates of the Wharton School of Business) that a savvy, comedy-loving entrepreneur could make a profitable go of it by establishing clubs in one or both of these upstate NY locales. The populations of both cities are disproportionately loaded with knowledgeable and enthusiastic comedy fans (and have been for over two decades) and there is now a void to be filled.
On a side note: Something bugged us about the Comix Cafe site (see link above). Compare it to this site, for a comedy club on the other side of the continent. Hmmm… There seems to be a similarity in their graphics. Has Rochester been bought out by the Seattle folks? Or is it merely a case of stolen graphics? (We wouldn’t be surprised by the latter, as the Rochester management seems to be somewhat lacking in scruples– when we named the Buffalo Comix Cafe as one of the top ten clubs in the country in a USA Today article, the Rochester people appropriated the quote and, capitalizing on readers’ confusion, they claimed their establishment as “one of the country’s ten best, according to USA Today!” Totally sleazoidal!)