As anyone 25 years or older knows, a lot changes during that span of time.
Such has been the case upstairs at 25 S. J St., in the 101-year-old Paradise Building in Lake Worth Beach, where Rudy’s at Bamboo opened Feb. 14. It marked the sixth grand opening at the club since it originally launched as the Bamboo Room in 1999.
MaryBeth Sisoian, whose Rudy’s Pub has been a fixture directly downstairs at 21 S. J St. since 2018, took over after the Bamboo’s previous tenants had miscast the heralded live music venue as a dance club. For the past several years, a room that’s hosted recognizable roots music and jazz/fusion artists — including Bo Diddley, Larry Coryell, Elvin Bishop, Dan Hicks, Garaj Mahal, Col. Bruce Hampton, Oteil Burbridge, Jimmy Herring, Jeff Berlin, NRBQ, Levon Helm, Hubert Sumlin, Donald “Duck” Dunn, Bobby Lee Rodgers, and James “Blood” Ulmer — had featured mostly deejays.
Recurring live music, a staple at Rudy’s since it initially opened in another location a block north in 2012, has returned to the Bamboo. Evidence was on display during a free admission show by local pop/rock cover band the Westminster Trio on March 28 and a $5 admission show by veteran Grateful Dead nostalgia act Crazy Fingers on April 4.
The Westminster Trio audience was relatively sparse but appreciative, with patrons occasionally rising from their tables (optionally reserved ahead of time for $20) to dance up front. And the ever-popular Crazy Fingers, segueing into an every-Thursday house gig directly from one at the now-shuttered Fish Depot in Boynton Beach, drew a throng.
“I believe, including our large outdoor patio, that our capacity is 235 people,” Sisoian says. “The room has such a great vibe to it, which I think is the main reason I took it over. It’s just a gorgeous piece of property. I’m taking my time and seeing what works, and I think we’ve made great progress in getting where we want to be since February.”
“It’s really great to see you all,” Crazy Fingers vocalist/guitarist Rich Friedman announced to the tie-dyed audience. “It’s been a minute.”
Friedman wasn’t exaggerating overall, since the 35-year-old quintet had become a regular Rudy’s booking on that back patio stage, but was rather referring to the long stretch since it had appeared on the heralded stage upstairs.
The Bamboo Room’s initial run was from 1999-2008, and overseen by the husband-and-wife team of Russell Hibbard and Karen McKinley, who darkened its lights when the economy sagged. The couple reopened the venue in 2011, with Hibbard largely turning over booking duties to managers Donald Becker and Craig Young. Big names still appeared, although geared more toward classic rock — Pat Travers, Edgar Winter, Ray Manzarek — before Hibbard and McKinley shut things down by exiting in 2014.
The club reopened under new management in 2015 before closing again soon thereafter, and subsequently in 2018 as The Phoenix Charity Bar at the Bamboo Room before doing likewise. In-between, Sunday services under management by Mike Olive, pastor for Common Grounds Church, were the room’s only gatherings. When the dance club version’s lease expired in January after nearly five years, Sisoian expanded upward from Rudy’s (which, in the Bamboo Room’s earlier days, was its office space).
Rudy’s original location was a 500-square-foot room on North J Street that was roughly the size of Imelda Marcos’ shoe closet. Live acts were thus shoehorned in along various walls, often to audiences that had no choice but to be standing room only, but the little club had a unique flair and character, not to mention characters. It’s now called Back of the Shak, and behind the Rhum Shak at Lake Avenue and J Street.
The current Rudy’s is three times larger, yet no indoor facilities were big enough when COVID-19 restrictions hit. Sisoian started offering patrons a menu of sandwiches, allowing the venue to stay open in the process while nightclubs without food went dark. Rudy’s at Bamboo now offers additional cooked fares like pizzas, tacos, fries, nachos and quesadillas from the small kitchen behind its bar and walk-in cooler.
“We’ve expanded our menu,” says Sisoian, “and people love our food.”
Rudy’s also offset COVID-19 restrictions by sharing the Paradise Building’s back parking lot with the Bamboo Room’s deejay and reggae band presentations. All took place in the revamped, makeshift outdoor entertainment space, with its wooden stage, tables and chairs. Fenced and gated off from the alley to its west, the patio stage gave Sisoian an initial opening to try cover charges, and also to book area jazz and R&B groups she hadn’t before, like T’s Express, the Delray Jazz Collective, and Solid Brass.
Yet the patio also became a bone of contention with Lake Worth Beach officials after pandemic restrictions were lifted. Ongoing negotiations have continued during the past two years over whether the outdoor seating violates city codes that stipulate its parking lot status.
Unless or until she gets overruled, Sisoian currently oversees something akin to a musical three-ring circus. Rudy’s now features free admission for its solo acts to trios, plus open mics and karaoke downstairs (the Westminster Trio performed there on April 4 while Crazy Fingers played upstairs). Rudy’s at Bamboo often charges a cover fee for larger acts either upstairs or on the back patio, or both simultaneously, although there’s no solid structure outdoors atop either the stage or seating area in case of rain.
“The city has eased up on us,” says Sisoian. “They realize that we’re respectful of our neighbors and stay conscious that the music isn’t too loud. We don’t go too late, either. Our primary age demographic is people from in their 40s through their 60s, although we have a handful of younger people who come out.”
The Lake Worth Beach’s planning and zoning department reiterated that the parking lot issue had been left in limbo, but was likely to be revisited over the summer now that elections concluded in April.
The Bamboo Room was once a barometer for Palm Beach County’s live music scene in general, and Lake Worth Beach’s in particular. During the Hibbard-McKinley years from 1999-2014, the club became a prime destination. Its bookings weren’t stadium or amphitheater acts, but artists with enough talent, integrity, originality and name recognition that they were a draw. And many wanted to play at, and return to, the Bamboo because of its own musical atmosphere and reputation. The original Rudy’s opened during that time frame.
“The Bamboo is more of an experience than just a bar,” Sisoian says. “It certainly is for me. People come out, see a show, and have a blast. And our back patio has become an additional attraction. The Bamboo, Rudy’s and the patio stage make up a community place for people who really love and respect live music.”
The music scene exploded in downtown Lake Worth Beach between 1999 and 2014, enough to cause subsequent noise ordinances. A few current venues still offer live music — the Irish Brigade (then called Brogues Irish Pub), Blueprint Bar & Grill (South Shores Tavern), Propaganda, Igot’s Martiki Bar, Rhum Shak — but more have since turned into restaurants, real estate offices or thrift stores, or gone dark (Coffee Gallery, Little Munich, Bizaare Avenue Cafe, Havana Hideout, The Cottage, Mother Earth Coffee, the Cultural Plaza stage).
To the south, the Funky Biscuit opened in Boca Raton in 2011, eventually luring managers Becker and Young to lend their talents and featuring a scroll of recognizable touring blues, rock and jazz/fusion names. To the north, owners Vince and Kelly Flora have done the same at Double Roads in Jupiter. More recently, and only a few blocks to the southwest, Mathews Brewing Company has found success in the industrial area of Lake Worth Beach west of U.S. 1.
All, however, have resorted to some degree in the cost-cutting and/or non-original presentations that bring into question the creativity of both venues and patrons in South Florida, especially since the pandemic. Those include lowest-common-denominator, all-inclusive open mics, jams, and vocal-worshipping karaoke; tributes, trivia, deejays, solo acts with backing tracks, and homogenized art-and-music combinations. At least none have yet tried micro wrestling.
Sisoian says she might eventually go beyond Rudy’s at Bamboo’s reasonably priced craft, imported and domestic beer, wine, canned cocktails, and hard seltzer offerings by obtaining a full liquor license. In addition to its creative bookings, the original Bamboo Room featured talented bartenders mixing signature cocktails. In each of the room’s subsequent reopenings, those bookings and libations were watered down.
“So far, not many people are fussing about the drinks we offer,” she says. “I’m tossing around the idea of a license, but we’ll see. Insurance here is outrageously priced, and everything has to be cost-efficient at this point.”
The same goes for the talent at Rudy’s at Bamboo, which plays through some of the same sound equipment from the room’s salad days, if often without a soundman up in the familiar crow’s nest on its west wall. Most cover charges range between the $5 Crazy Fingers admission and $20 (the price for a visiting Jackson Browne tribute band in March).
“I’m extremely happy with the talent we have so far,” says Sisoian. “J.P. Soars, Crazy Fingers, the Marshall Brothers, and Terry Hanck are all great local artists, and I’m not sure they’d all even want to have a soundman. I definitely want to work toward booking touring acts, maybe once a month, but slowly. And I do have a couple of surprises, and a band with a bigger name, that are upcoming possibilities that I can’t name yet.”
If You Go
Rudy’s at Bamboo is located at 25 S. J St. in Lake Worth Beach
Hours: 6-10 p.m. Wednesday, 6 p.m.-midnight Thursday and Friday, 4 p.m.-midnight Saturday, 4-10 p.m. Sunday.
Info: 561-602-5307, rudyspubinlakeworth.com