Changes to a Decades-Long Open Mic Shake Denver’s Poetry Community

For more than thirty years, countless creatives have birthed ideas, spoken their truths and made connections between the brick walls of the Mercury Cafe — now The Pearl — at the venue’s long-standing poetry open mic on Friday nights.

But now The Pearl is moving the event to Sundays, a decision that has shocked the venue’s poetry community and even caused a little drama on social media.

Ashlee Cassity, co-owner of The Pearl, says the open mic — and other iconic events left over from the Mercury Cafe, like swing dancing, will live on. “We’re not getting rid of anything,” she says. “Never, ever, ever. As long as everyone can meet us in the middle and understand we’re trying to keep this open.”

Because as she puts it, “It has been a struggle.”

Financial Struggles at The Pearl

While the origins of the Mercury Cafe date back to 1970s Indian Hills, Marilyn Megnity opened the venue that would become a Denver cultural mainstay at 2199 California Street in 1990. She operated the building where people came to dance, share poetry and music, read tarot and enjoy events. It was known for its fresh flower arrangements, food made from local ingredients and toilets that were also sinks.

In 2021, Megenity sold the building and business to a team comprising entrepreneur Danny Newman, his wife, Christy Kruzick, and business partner Austin Gayer, but by August of 2024, they had put the Merc up for sale. Last spring, Cassity and business partner Dom Garcia started their lease at the building, which became The Pearl, named after their last venture, a lesbian speakeasy called Pearl Divers in Capitol Hill.

While Cassity and Garcia couldn’t keep the Mercury Cafe name due to the owners “shutting down the Mercury Cafe not only in business but in name,” they promised to operate the building with the same values and events that Merc regulars loved.

“We ran it as is for an entire year to see if we could maybe figure out something different that the Mercury team didn’t think of, and try to figure out what was working and what wasn’t,” Cassity says.

The building has taken a lot to keep open, she admits. “We run into the same things that the Mercury ran into, as far as putting all of the money that we make back into the building so that it can stay up to code and really high operating costs because of how big the building is,” she says.

Cassity adds that as long as The Pearl team is successfully operating the building, the spirit of the Mercury Cafe will always be there. “But the moment we can’t operate the building anymore, there’s not another operator coming in,” she says. “They’re going to try to make it something like a parking lot — this is something that has been said to us. We’re currently looking for an angel investor to help us purchase the building from the landlords because they are trying to sell the building. They can sell it to whoever they want. As long as we are in good standing operators, they can’t make us leave that building. So we’re trying to remain operating so that when someone buys it, they can’t turn it into a parking lot.”

Shifting the Friday Night Poetry Open Mic to Sunday

As Denver’s only lesbian bar, Friday and Saturday nights are a prime time for business and ticketed events that bring money to The Pearl. Cassity says the difference between a Saturday night, when the space is used to promote ticketed events, versus a Friday night, when one of the rooms is used for jazz and poetry, is almost $8,000.

On Sunday evenings, there is already a poetry slam event, so Cassity’s solution was to move the poetry open mic to Sundays to free up space on Fridays.

“I understand that change is hard. It sucks for us to have to make this change because this isn’t what we wanted,” Cassity says. “This is why we’ve kept it the way that it was since we first took it over, but unfortunately, we also have to be strategic because we can’t let the space close.”

She adds that it’s not just poets who are involved in the building, but an entire community. “Our community is involved in this building and uses it as a safe space,” she says. “…They can buy drinks and food to help support, but we don’t charge people for these spaces. We wanted a safe place for people to be able to come in and express themselves, whatever that expression looks like.”

The Poetry Community Reacts to the Change

On Monday, March 23, poetry open mic organizers posted on Instagram that Friday, March 27, would be the last Friday night open mic, and that they received a week’s notice of the change.

Cassity asserts that she spoke with the person who hosted the open mic on Friday, March 20, to let them know that the event’s date would be changing and to start letting people know the following Friday. “If we let people know on Friday, in two or three weeks, we can move to Sunday, and everyone will understand,” she says. “But social media does what social media does. It blew up, and a lot of not-true information got out there, and we’ve been flooded with DMs of what horrible people we are, and how we don’t keep our word and all these things.”

Emily Wiechec, who has been a host at the open mic since 2011, admits that she’s responsible for the miscommunication to some degree. “I talked to the host that she spoke with directly, and he did say we’ll announce it next week, but I misheard it as next week will be the last one,” she says.

Since it was announced on social media, Friday, March 27, will be the last time the poetry open mic is held on a Friday night at The Pearl.

“There are a lot of ways it could’ve gone differently,” Wiechec says. “Even two weeks’ notice is really short notice for changing such an established tradition. In my mind, maybe we could’ve come together a month prior to creatively problem-solve and be more helpful. Unfortunately, the short notice resulted in me wanting to get the word out as soon as possible, even if there wasn’t clear information, and letting people know, ‘Hey, this might be happening, and we don’t have all the information.’ But social media can often morph into something else, and clearly it has.”

Cassity says that on Sunday, March 29, she plans to meet with organizers from both the poetry open mic and the poetry slam to figure out next steps.

Wiechec says she wasn’t aware of The Pearl’s financial struggles until recently. “All of us want to see The Pearl be successful,” she says. “It’s unfortunate that they seem to be facing similar struggles that the Mercury Cafe in that space faced under numerous owners.”

“We tell people, even though the event is free, if you do not support the venue by buying food or drinks, eventually the event is not going to last,” adds Ricardo Bogaert-Alvarez, who has been involved in the open mic since 2008 and a host since 2017.

And despite the changes, Wiechec is thankful for Cassity and Garcia’s work at the venue. “When Ashlee and Dom took over, it brought the community in to be more inclusive. They also were their own establishment prior to that and did not have to continue anything, and neither did the previous owners, so I think there’s been a consistency of the open mic standing strong and the community that attends that and supports that.”

The Legacy of Poetry at The Mercury Cafe/Pearl

Above all, the hosts just want the poetry open mic to continue. Over the years, it’s gone through many time changes, it’s been in different rooms in the building and was even hosted online during COVID-19 shutdowns.

“Change doesn’t always mean an ending,” Wiechec says. “Friday night shifting is an ending, yet it could be a new beginning that’s really beautiful. The Sunday night and Friday night communities have some overlap, but there’s also some tension between slam and open mic, and what people’s preferences are. Maybe this is a moment of opportunity for those two communities to form deeper connections and new, really cool things to come from those connections.”

In fact, the late Colorado poet laureate Andrea Gibson found their footing at the weekly Sunday night slams at the Mercury Cafe. “It was in this space that I became a poet,” they wrote in a 2020 Westword op-ed. “For years, the Mercury Cafe not only kept me alive, but kept me desperately wanting to live. The Sunday night poetry slam was the lifeblood of my becoming, and the community of writers, musicians, artists and activists who spent time there were and still are my most constant teachers.”

Wiechec feels similarly about the open mic. “This open mic saves lives,” she says. “I don’t often vulnerably add on to that: Including my own. That’s part of why I’m so dedicated to serving it. It’s a fabulous space where people can get up on stage and have a venue for their voice to be heard, no matter how wild it is, or disturbing or sad or joyful. It brings people together.”

Bogaert-Alvarez adds that, sometimes, as a host, he feels like a therapist. “The audience and the hosts are there to help you, support you, to make you see that you are not alone in the world,” he says. “You have people who love and care about you. That’s a reason the open mic has been helping people for so long. It has survived because we help the people, and by doing that, we help the community, especially in a time when our country is so divided.”

“It’s such a powerful space where anyone is welcome, and everyone feels valued, at least that’s my hope and what we try to do every Friday and what we’ll continue to try to do every Sunday when we’re there,” Wiechec says.

Philip Tran, who first attended the Friday night poetry open mic in the late ’90s and has been a host for several years, says that every Friday night was a gift for the poetry community, and he’s sad to see the legacy come to an end. “As much as the poetry writing community, the poetry listening community is losing a reliable home that’s known across the country,” he says.

There might be a void on Friday nights now, and Tran says he’s open to the idea of finding a new location — even City Park on warm nights — for people who need that space on Fridays.

“In the meantime, we’ll remain grateful to the Sunday crew of hosts and performers for making space for us,” Tran says, adding, “The Mercury legacy has already succeeded. Over the past few years, poetry and performance open mics have been springing up everywhere, some hosted by people who’ve been part of that legacy. Whatever happens next will be that continued blessing that we make together, just like it’s always been. Thirty years ago, Marilyn Megenity asked Ed Ward to host a poetry open mic, and we don’t plan on stopping here.”

Learn more about The Pearl here. Keep up with developments to the poetry open mic here.