Ardmore’s the Living Room and Cricket Cafe is closing
Laura Mann's intimate venue, that's been home to Philly singer-songwriters, will shut its doors in April.
The Main Line is losing a music venue.
The Living Room and Cricket Cafe, the Ardmore listening room owned and booked by Philadelphia songwriter Laura Mann, is closing for good in April.
Mann opened the seated BYOB venue, then known simply as the Living Room, on Lancaster Avenue, in 2018. After the pandemic shutdown, she reopened in a space in Ardmore’s Masonic Hall in 2021, before relocating last year to the club and cafe’s current home in a former funeral home on Cricket Avenue.
In all three of iterations, the club has made a home for a community of Philly folk-leaning singer-songwriters like Eric Bazilian of the Hooters, Ben Arnold, Jim Boggia, Jeffrey Gaines, and Mann herself, as well as bringing in national touring acts like NRBQ, Steve Wynn, Marshall Crenshaw, and Vernon Reid of Living Colour.
“It’s with a heavy heart that I’ve decided to close The Living Room and Cricket Cafe,” Mann said in a news release. “I would like to work on my own music, travel the country, and spend more time with loved ones, because as time goes by, that becomes more precious to me.”
Mann has been a fixture on the local singer-songwriter scene since the 1980s, when the South Jersey native got her start as a protégé of Robert Hazard, the Philly rocker known for his hit “Escalator of Life” and for writing Cyndi Lauper’s signature song, “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.”
Since Mann opened the 150-capacity Living Room — known for its cushy sofa and comfortable chairs, as well as open mic jazz and singer-songwriter nights — the club has been one of three venues along Lancaster Avenue in Philly’s inner western suburbs, along with Ardmore Music Hall and 118 North in Wayne.
Mann’s venture helped fill the void in the local scene that opened when Old City acoustic room the Tin Angel closed in 2017, and the Manayunk venue the Locks at Sona was lost during the pandemic.
The Living Room will keep up a busy calendar through April. Bar band extraordinaire NRBQ is Feb. 15, Hot Club of Philadelphia is Feb. 16; Cliff Hillis, Steve Butler, and Suzanne Lavine are on a triple bill on March 9, hip-hop and harp duo Kuf Knotz and Christine Elise play March 10, and Reid brings his “Verntronics” show on April 11.
On the club’s final weekend, Mann and Dan Navarro will play on April 26. The next night, the Living Room will make a grand exit with Arnold, Boggia, and the 48 Hour Orchestra playing on Cricket Avenue, and blues singing sax player Vanessa Collier playing simultaneously at the venue’s previous locale around the corner at the Masonic Hall.
More info at livingroomardmore.com.