The death knell for live music on downtown St. Petersburg’s 600 Block has arrived. Fubar — which has been holding it down for the better part of the decade — will host its last show on Monday, December 31. With State Theatre still under renovation, the news ushers in a virtual silencing of live music on a stretch of Central Avenue that was once rife with the sounds of local and national bands.
“It has been an amazing nine years with all of you; from day one this has truly been a community project molded and shaped by every band, musician, artist, comedian, promoter, photographer, philosopher and PBR that came through the door and spent a little time with us,” Fubar owner Jay Aresty wrote online Tuesday night.
Aresty, who’s been working in tandem with Bay area live music scene totem Todd Frain to book the venue, saved his highest praise for Frain, a St. Louis export who worked with the creative community to change the look, feel and sound of of the Bay area music scene.
“This place has been everything because of Todd,” Aresty wrote. “I’ll miss working with (and yelling at) him every day.”
Frain told CL that his phone notifications have been firing off nonstop since the announcement and that he plans on booking every Fubar and St. Pete staple band to play the final weekend until they’re kicked out and forced to close doors as the sun comes up on 2019.
“This didn’t work the way it did because we had this grand idea. We opened it thinking we were gonna close in a year,” Frain said. “We weren’t doing this for ourselves. The town molded it into what it needed to be. The reason we did this was because there was a need.”
And now — like the neighboring Local 662, which closed last summer to make way for a branch of the Jacksonville-based Maple Street Biscuit Company — Fubar is being forced to give way to market needs and forces which demand that property investors make good on their real estate gambles.
An online listing connects Fubar’s address, 658 Central Ave., with the “Ward & Baum Spaekeasy [sic],” but broker Jon LaBudde says that’s a just a placeholder name. He showed the property off three times on Tuesday and fields about 20 inquiries on the spot per week. LaBudde told CL that his group — Tricera Capital — would like to see a bar or nightlife venue in the space, but he’s open to anything with a certain level of sophistication (“salon, boutique”) moving into the 1,900 square-foot space (LaBudde also divulged that a national food & beverage concept will soon move into the parcel on the corner of Central Avenue and Seventh Street, next to Daddy Kool Records).
Frain, for his part, is certain that he and Aresty will not be opening another Fubar.
"Right now, it's all too crazy," he said when asked about his next move. "We'll have to see what happens."
Look for more details on the final shows — and CL’s longer look into Fubar’s history — soon.
This article appears in Nov 8-15, 2018.