That's a tall order. Since founder Marilyn Megenity opened her original venue in 1975 in Indian Hills — it went through several names and addresses before she bought a freestanding building at 2199 California Street in 1990 — the Merc has been a local hub of food, music, poetry, dance and practically every other form of human expression you can imagine. At its height as a venue for touring bands in the '90s, the Mercury's upstairs room hosted everyone from Radiohead to Blink-182, just before they outgrew such stages in favor of stadiums.
In much the same way, Garcia and business partner Ashlee Cassity have outgrown their current establishment, Pearl Divers at 608 East 13th Avenue. The hybrid concept of tiki joint, lesbian bar and speakeasy opened on December 1, and in the short amount of time since, it's become too big for the modest room it now occupies: a walled-off portion of Capitol Hill nightclub Your Mom's House. "They've been great sharing space with us," says Cassity, "but people want more of us. We booked out all of our events for the rest of the entire year already. Now we actually have space to open up."
The duo — along with Pearl co-owners Sheli Gilman of the local events promoter Sapphic Collective and Jonathan Mora of Mora Pizza/Tua Mama's — have signed a five-year lease with Danny Newman, one of the partners who bought the Mercury from Megenity in June 2021. In the intervening four years, the Mercury has struggled to rise above numerous challenges such as COVID, staff upheavals and nearby homeless encampments that occasionally overwhelmed the area. An underlying concern was been the formidable reputation of the Mercury itself. Now in its fiftieth year, the once-mighty Mercury is limping to the finish line, with its final day of business being marked without ceremony on March 31.
Not only are Cassity, Garcia, Gilman and Mora energized by the potential of the place, however, they have every intention of eventually exercising a major option in their five-year lease: to buy the property from Newman. One option the lease did not include, however, was the rights to the Mercury Cafe's moniker.
"The Mercury Cafe is going to be shutting down," Garcia says, "and they thought it was best that we started with our own brand, started fresh, to bring some new life in. And I guess the reason why they chose us over some of the other people that were looking into buying it was our vision for the space, knowing that we were gonna bring our own brand in, but we weren't just gonna tear it down or turn it into something that it was never intended to be."
The Mercury Cafe will become the Pearl.
Westword
One thing that won't be changing is one of the Mercury's longtime anchors: dance nights. The Pearl's owners have pledged to keep the popular swing-dancing soirees happening on a regular basis. Poetry slams, open mics and live bands will also remain, and drag shows are going to become a staple. According to Garcia, private events such as weddings have already been booked.
Another holdover will honor a personal request that Megenity made to Newman when his team bought the Mercury so she could retire: that the establishment's famous Jungle Room, which teems with plants, murals, velvet and vintage atmosphere, remain more or less untouched. In fact, Cassity and Garcia intend to meet with Megenity soon.
"We plan to honor Marilyn's requests," Cassity says "The name 'the Mercury Cafe' is going away, but that doesn't mean the legacy has to go away."
The grand opening date of the Pearl hasn't been announced, and Cassity estimates that the Rose Room will open for diners sometime in mid-April. In the meantime, she and Garcia are mobilizing their current employees to assist with the move from East 13th to California Street, as well as getting to know their new employees, since they intend to retain as many of the Mercury's current workers as possible. But they're also getting a helping hand from their own patrons.
'We reached out to our customers and were like, 'Hey, you know, we've got a lot to do over the next three weeks. If we have any volunteers, we would love that.' And now we're at 86 volunteers who will be here to help us clean, organize, paint. It blew our minds. The community is backing us 100 percent."
Their definition of community isn't going to begin and end with those who spend money at the Pearl. Rather than worry about how much the predominance of homeless people in the neighborhood might impact the bottom line, Cassity and Garcia plan on donating leftover food from the Rose Room to homeless shelters in the area.
At its heart, though, the Pearl has every intention of being the organic extension of Pearl Divers, which became the last lesbian bar in Colorado — and one of only a handful left in the United States — after Blush & Blu at 1526 East Colfax closed last October before reopening as Cocks on Colfax.
"If you've ever seen The L Word — lesbians who will be reading this will know exactly what we're talking about — they had a fictional location that all of the lesbians in the show went to called the Planet," Garcia says. "It was a cafe during the day and a bar-slash-club-slash-music-venue at night. So we intend to kind of lean into that. It's going to be our very own the Planet, only minus the transphobia that we saw in the show."
Like Pearl Divers before it, the Pearl will proudly display its lesbian roots. Still, says Garcia, "We want everyone to come, not just lesbians, and not just because it will be a safe space for everyone. I call it sapphic-focused, but that's because sapphics do need a space where they belong. But the whole community also belongs here. Anybody who's an ally, straight, gay, lesbian, no-binary, transgender, it does not matter to us: We want everyone here."
