‘It is sad’: Downtown Boise’s comedy club pulls the plug. But here’s reason to smile.
Not so many months ago, Liquid Laughs was laughing all the way to the bank.
Plugging away with stand-up starting in 2010, the lounge at 405 S. 8th St. had built a following over time that supported comedy six nights a week. Drawing crowds for local and national performers, Liquid’s numbers — finally — were no joke.
“I was doing the best I’d ever done with comedy,” co-owner Jeremy Aevermann says. “Comedy was crushing. We were doing awesome.
“Then coronavirus came, and I had to cancel a bunch of shows and refund a bunch of people.”
Just like that, the microphone was unplugged.
And for the first time in nearly a decade, downtown Boise has no dedicated comedy club.
But smile. The city’s comedy torch is being passed, Aevermann says — to a promising performing arts space on the Boise Bench.
No Liquid comedy
Liquid is not closed. It’s open. But now it’s a “restaurant-style pub,” Aevermann says. The cocktail tables and chairs have been removed. About 10 classic arcade games and half a dozen pool tables anchor the space next to Solid, an adjoining restaurant and bar also owned by Aevermann.
Liquid’s furniture has been donated to the Lounge at the End of the Universe, 2417 Bank Drive, right off Vista Avenue and Overland Road. Aevermann still has three comedians booked: Josh Wolf in August, Greg Fitzsimmons in October and Dan Cummins in December. If those gigs occur as planned, he will present them at the Lounge at the End of the Universe.
Liquid is too small for comedy to be economically feasible in a socially distanced environment, Aevermann says. Plus, he feels it’s risky to assume comedy audiences will return in force anytime soon.
“I have to make the place work,” Aevermann says. “You can’t live on comedy when you pay as much money as it costs to do it. It just doesn’t pan out on paper to bring people in and do half your capacity.”
Like so many things during the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s a depressing situation: The thought of downtown Boise with no comedy club. Aevermann understands. After spending countless hours building his fun-loving clientele over the years, he feels your pain. And then some.
“It is sad,” Aevermann agrees. “But also, I worked so hard to get it where it was. I struggled. That place has struggled for years, and then finally I got it to where it was really going good and had bigger and better names coming. And then when the COVID thing came, I just had to adapt.”
Lounge to the rescue
Boise comedy is in good hands at the Lounge at the End of the Universe.
The Lounge’s owner, Jen Adams, is a comedian and comrade. During Liquid’s early years, she booked comics for Aevermann. Adams even performed at longtime Boise comedy club the Funny Bone (where Liquid operates now) on its final night of business at the end of 2007.
Located at the Gem Center for the Arts, the Lounge opened last year as a multi-use performance space. It hosts events ranging from music to comedy, theater to burlesque shows. The Gem Center building is filled with dozens of artist studios.
During the pandemic, the Lounge has presented small shows to socially distanced audiences of 30. Performances are live streamed, and virtual tickets are sold online for a suggested donation. This sort of innovative thinking comes naturally when you share a building with an army of artists, Adams says — especially during a pandemic.
“It’s weird, because it’s panicky from a business owner standpoint,” she says, “but ... it’s kind of been a wonderfully creative time for all of us, because we’ve been forced to be creative.”
The Lounge is open now and featuring shows. (Check the website for updates. The bar area is closed, but delivery and pick-up of beer is available.) On July 17, comedian Dwight Slade will perform with Beth Norton. Adams also is planning a reboot of the annual Boise’s Funniest Person competition in September — except with experienced comedians instead of amateurs this year. “We have a lot of out-of-work comics that could really use the money and the exposure right now,” she explains.
The Lounge has two performance spaces that seat about 125 downstairs and 275 upstairs.
“Our ultimate goal is to have the downstairs become a dedicated full-time comedy club,” Adams says, “because it’s a beautifully dark basement that’s 1,600 square feet. Non-COVID times, we’ll do the small shows down there, and then when we get a big show, we’ll bring it up to the Lounge proper.”
Maybe you’ll even spot Aevermann in the crowd — sitting in one of Liquid’s old chairs.
He’ll always have fond memories of laughter filling Liquid. Memorable performers over the years included Pauly Shore, Gilbert Gottfried, Hannibal Buress and Ralphie May.
But it’s clear that Aevermann believes saying goodbye to stand-up was the right choice for him.
“There’s no other way,” Aevermann says. “It’s the only way. And we’re making it work. That’s the key. I plan on being downtown for many, many more years. I just gotta do what I gotta do to keep it rolling.”
This story was originally published July 7, 2020 at 11:09 AM.