The Lantern will open in Rochester's East End, close to the corner of East Avenue and Alexander Street. We are looking at spaces now and have not signed anything. The address goes on this page the day the lease is signed, and not before.
What the space has to do
Whichever building it turns out to be, it has to do a short list of things well, because they are the reasons someone stays for an afternoon and comes back the next week.
- Hold a working afternoon and an evening in the same chairs. Tables for laptops in the daytime, the same tables for a drink and a conversation at night, without rearranging anything at five.
- Keep the stage out of the way. In the daytime nobody wants to sit facing an empty stage, and in the evening the people who came to listen should be able to see it while the people who came to talk can keep talking.
- Power at the seats and wifi that works. These decide whether someone stays four hours or forty minutes.
- Stay quiet enough. Anything on the stage is kept to a volume you can talk over, and the walls have to keep that sound inside for the neighbours.
- Be somewhere people already walk. The East End is where Rochester already goes out, with thousands of people living within a few minutes' walk.
The choices, and what they mean for the people in it
Every space we have looked at trades one of these against another. This is how we think about each, from the point of view of someone sitting in it.
How big
Around 1,500 square feet. About 45 seats. It would be a small café-bar. The afternoon fills early and people who want to stay for hours start to feel they are holding a table someone else needs. A performer on a Thursday fills the whole place rather than one side of it, and a Friday has a line at the door. It costs less to rent and it is cosy, but it works against what The Lantern is for.
Around 3,000 to 3,500 square feet. About 100 to 120 seats. This is the size the plan is built around. There is space to work in one corner and talk in another, a stage that sits to one side instead of in the middle, and a weekend that fills without feeling packed.
5,000 square feet and up. Space for a separate quiet area or a second bar, but a slow Tuesday afternoon would feel empty, and the heating, cleaning and staff grow with the floor.
What state it is in
A space that has been a bar or restaurant before. It opens months sooner, costs far less to fit out, and may move faster through the liquor licence. The trade is that we inherit someone else's layout and adapt to it.
An empty shell. We could build exactly what we want, but a build takes months, and for a first business the time is a bigger risk than the cost. Every month of building is a month of rent before the doors open.
Where in the East End
On East Avenue itself. Visible, with people walking past at every hour, and part of the district's evening. The City runs a security perimeter in the East End late on Saturday nights, which matters for the last hours of a Saturday and not at all for the rest of the week.
On a side street off East or Alexander. Usually quieter and cheaper, and kinder to neighbours at night, but harder to find. The Lantern would depend more on word of mouth than on people walking by.
Getting there
A building with its own parking makes a winter evening, or a visit from someone's parents, much easier. Street parking only is normal for the district and fine for the people who live nearby, who are most of the daytime.
Why the East End
The East End is the part of Rochester that already goes out at night. Within walking distance are more than ten thousand downtown residents, the Eastman School, and the hospital and university populations to the south, and a corridor of restaurants, bars and venues people already travel to. What it does not have is somewhere to sit and work at two in the afternoon that turns into somewhere to spend the evening with a friend. That is the gap The Lantern is meant to fill.
Hours
Eleven in the morning to midnight, Monday to Saturday, and eleven to eight on Sunday, all year. The hours page has the rest.
Next: Hours and programming