Club Café’s neon sign is glowing once again on East Carson Street, less than a year after the storied music venue closed.

For 25 years, the 125-seat performance space served as a launchpad, where future stars like John Mayer and Norah Jones cut their teeth, where Pittsburgh artists played their first sets, and where countless late-night encores turned strangers into regulars. Its sudden closure in December 2024 felt like a gut punch to the city’s music community, including event coordinator Danielle Mashuda.

“When I first heard it was closing, I was in disbelief before the sadness could even hit me,” Mashuda tells Pittsburgh City Paper. Then her business partner, Maddy Lafferty, texted: “We should buy it.”

“I rolled my eyes,” Mashuda says. “That’s just Maddy. When we go to Texas, she emails Willie Nelson and invites him to our events. She’s fearless.”

Within minutes of the closure announcement, Lafferty emailed Michael Sanders, the longtime owner who, through his company Opus One Productions, turned Club Café into one of Pittsburgh’s most intimate music venues. Sanders agreed to meet, and by the end of the conversation, Mashuda and Lafferty convinced him they were the right people to carry Club Café forward. “You remind me of myself 20 years ago,” Sanders told them.

By April 2025, the keys were theirs.

“I would’ve never considered buying a club if it wasn’t this one,” Mashuda says. “It’s such a huge part of Pittsburgh’s music history. It’s the first stage for so many artists.”

Club Café on Pittsburgh’s Southside Credit: CP Photo: Jeff Schreckengost

The purchase was a natural extension of their work. Mashuda and Lafferty met in 2019 and bonded over making Pittsburgh a better place for working artists. They founded Keystone Artist Connect and started producing live shows, collaborating with WYEP and the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy, and booking SXSW showcases.

“We’re very artist-forward,” Mashuda says. “Every decision is about making the artist happy, giving them a great experience so they want to come back to Pittsburgh.”

That starts with booking. By leveraging their Keystone Artist Connect network, Lafferty and Mashuda are turning Club Café into a place where local acts open for national touring artists. “It’s not just our Keystone artists,” Mashuda says. “If you’re a Pittsburgh artist and you’re ready for that stage, we want to give you the shot.”

They also focused on turning the venue into a hangout, not just a performance space. Club Café will double as a coffee shop during the day, and even on nights without shows, the doors will stay open for community programming such as open mics, DJ sets, trivia, karaoke, and “whatever else gets people in here,” Mashuda says.

In the process of reopening Club Café, Mashuda and Lafferty recruited a team of local professionals familiar with the city’s music and hospitality scenes. Read Connolly, a pedal steel guitarist who has toured with Zach Bryan, joined as a partner. So did Kristen Whitlinger, a designer and founder of Women of Country PGH, who created the club’s new visual identity. Elliott Sussman, a longtime bartender and musician who, in 2007, played his first venue gig at Club Café, brings hospitality expertise to the team.

The new Club Café bar program, led by local mixologist Cullen J. Sanchez, features a cocktail list that’s inventive but approachable, anchored by a purple-hued gin drink inspired by the venue’s retro vibe. Food is playful and unfussy — “adult Lunchables” from The Cheese Queen (charcuterie boxes loaded with artisan cheeses and cured meats), breakfast sandwiches from Pittsburgh Sandwich Society for the morning coffee crowd, and a hot dog roller turning out classic and veggie dogs, as well as housemade dips and small bites like pickles and olives.

Other members of the Club Café crew include in-house sound engineer Wes Peters and Nick Guckert, a musician and the club’s facilities director, who painted walls, built custom tables, and wired the space for live shows. “Without Nick, this wouldn’t have happened,” Mashuda says. “He’s our house musician, our handyman, our everything.”

Walk through the front door, and the transformation becomes immediately noticeable. The walls are lined with art and Easter eggs of Pittsburgh’s past — there’s a framed Rusted Root promotional photo, a sepia-toned print of the building from the 1800s (a gift from Sanders), and, if you ask Mashuda, “a ghost named Phil” who might still be hanging around.

“We’re very vibrant and loud,” Mashuda says. “Everyone who came to our soft opening said, ‘We can feel all of you in here.’”

That sense of personality is everywhere. A vintage red phone begs guests to pick up with a neon sign that reads “Call for a good time” — doing so prompts ABBA’s “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!” to erupt from hidden speakers. The bathrooms, once purely utilitarian, now border on theater. One stall features a disco ball suspended from the ceiling.

“We’re those people who take bathroom selfies everywhere we go,” Mashuda says. “So we made one worth taking.”

Bold burgundy walls lead upstairs to the green room, with its massive white faux-fur sectional, teal velvet armchairs, record player stacked with vinyl, and Dolly Parton wall that Mashuda insists on calling “non-negotiable.” There is even a vanity stocked with everything from phone chargers to toothbrushes. “Musicians shouldn’t have to run to CVS between soundcheck and the show,” Mashuda says. “We wanted a place where they could actually relax.”

Under Mashuda and Lafferty, Club Café promises an expansive range of programming while staying true to the club’s acoustic roots. Folk, Americana, and singer-songwriter acts will share the stage with funk and jazz jams, punk shows, and hip-hop sets. The venue will also host drag revues, queer-fronted bands like Keystone’s own The Laurel Lowlifes, and LGBTQ DJ dance nights.

“We want everybody to come in,” Mashuda says, “and feel welcome on our stage and in our crowd.”

That philosophy was clear during the reopening: four nights of shows, two sold-out performances from soul-rockers The Commonheart, and an opener set from Paul Luc, the artist who first pulled Mashuda into Pittsburgh’s music scene when she moved back to the city from Colorado.

“It’s full circle,” Mashuda says. “That show, those people, that’s what brought me into this community.”

Now, she and Lafferty are paying it forward.

“This place isn’t about us,” Mashuda says. “It’s about the artists. We want them to feel safe. Respected. Thought of.”