Kafe Kerouac sits on N. High St. as a cozy venue for people to enjoy drinks and and live performances. Credit: Juliana Hilton
When Mike Heslop, owner of Kafe Kerouac, opened the cafe 18 years ago, he said he decided he wanted it to be a space for people to enjoy drinks while looking at many forms of art.
Kafe Kerouac, located at 2250 N. High St. is a local coffee shop that gives new artists an opportunity to showcase their talent and play in front of an audience, Heslop said. The cafe has live music, usually from local bands, every Tuesday evening at their open-mic nights.
“We kind of view ourselves as a stepping stone, a first approach for bands,” Heslop said. “We’ve had bands in the past that have gone on to larger fame, and occasionally, say a band is going to do a national tour, they might do like a secret show here before they go on tour as kind of a tune up.”
When looking to fill the cafe’s stage, Heslop said he looks for local artists and sees if they would work well with the cafe’s environment. If they do, the cafe will ask the artists to come back to perform regularly.
“Oftentimes we’ll have repeats of bands that come through and play here regularly where it might be like a collective of artists and musicians that maybe book a monthly event here,” Heslop said.
This past summer, Columbus-based alternative rock band No Alignment said they played one of their many shows at Kafe Kerouac.
Caleb Moeller, lead singer of No Alignment, said he heard about the music opportunities that Kafe Kerouac has to offer and decided to look into it. He said reaching out and booking the space was a smooth experience, and the cafe gave them more than enough time to perform.
“They just kind of gave us, like, three hours to just do whatever we wanted with, which was a little daunting at first, but they assured us that you don’t have to stay and play for those,” Moeller said.
Eric Glasgow, drummer of No Alignment, said the band had played at many venues of varying intensities, but said Kafe Kerouac was the perfect balance of chill and professional.
“Kafe Kerouac was a really fun medium where the venue was chill, right, and it was kind of in a place and had a vibe where we knew we weren’t going to play as hard as we could or even as hard as we usually might play while we’re practicing,” Glasgow said. “But, it was also nice enough, and professional enough and established enough that we didn’t have to go completely acoustic and sit there and try and play as quietly as we could, and finding that balance was a lot of fun to experiment with.”
Moeller said performing at Kafe Kerouac is special because of its cozy nature, which makes it better to connect with the audience.
“It’s small, it’s intimate, you are playing to people who are listening to you very closely, you can see everybody’s face,” Moeller said. “It was just a really cool and cozy experience of, like, we’re doing the music that we want to be with very little restrictions and people are just enjoying it.”
In addition to live music, Kafe Kerouac hosts poetry slams every Wednesday night. To find more upcoming events at Kafe Kerouac, check out the calendar on their website.
