Islington Venue The Garage To Relaunch
In February of this year, The Garage is relaunching as a new coffee, cocktail and craft beer bar under new ownership.
But don’t worry guys, this will only be part of it. The 24-year-old music venue will still be functioning with plenty of live bands and club nights. Newly acquired by the DHP family, The Garage has been updated with three new spaces and a brand new sound system.
The new daytime café is to be an American inspired bar called The General Store which promises huge beer fridges. Cocktails will also be served up in American items like Campbell’s soup tins or cornflake packets. There will also be a new live gig room called Thousand Island which is reserved for smaller, intimate sessions.
DHP plan to launch a series of new Saturday club nights too, starting with a Japanese-themed night that can only be described as bonkers. Description as follows: “Guests will be invited to dress up and enter a multi-sensory world where shady characters lurk behind vitriolic noodle vendors, and anime girls huddled in neon-lit Izakaysas. Think Blade Runner meets Baby Metal via Tarantino, soundtracked by Annie Mac’s Radio 1 show.”
Managing Director George Akins said, “The Garage has been on my radar for about 10 years now when I first looked to buy it. For one reason or another we have just missed out on taking over this iconic venue and breathing new life into it. Its location layout and history are perfect for what we are looking for in a venue and we look forward to reinventing the space for a new generation.”
Things are about to get a lot more interesting in Islington. What do you think of the new revamp? Let us know in the comments below.
67 Comments
The garage is older than 14 years old. This is a horrible horrible change. We’ve lost a fantastic music venue for a hipster joint. Fuck cocktails on cereal boxes and anime wet dreams
Actually as one of the many Japanese musicians who has played at The Garage, the Japanese themed night can only be described as “casual racism” Nice one. Another seminal venue becomes a no go zone.
How much does this blog get paid for reprinting press releases?
This sounds shit.
In fact, beyond shit.
You can cut open a living animal, tear out its lungs and breathe into it. Doesn’t change that the lung is dead and mutilated, which is about the same kind of “breathing life” as George Akins has done to the Garage.
I think people like this are killing the live music venue where people love seeing bands, getting sweaty, singing out in solidarity with our heroes on the stage! And they’re replacing it with CRAFT BEER and cocktails served IN CAMPBELLS SOUP TINS.
RIP London.
RIP EVERYTHING WE LOVE.
“Breathing new life into it… reinventing the space”? Top notch shit-speak there Mr Akins.
The Japanese-themed night sounds like something ‘TV go home’ without the hilarity.
Cocktails in soup cans and cornflake packets? Ugh.
What a shame taste didn’t make an appearance on your radar at some point in the past 10 years. You absolute cunt
Jesus this sounds horrible. Rip the soil out of another London gig venue and replace it with yet another faceless craft beer joint desperately trying to find ways to be special.
I give it a year.
Can’t wait to go and spill beer all over the place for a laugh/in protest for changing something that didn’t need changing.
To the new owner who thought this was a good idea.. gave a lifetime off you nonce.
Another great venue ruined.
I hope it goes out of business and shuts down. I know I won’t be going back.
George Akins is a cunt
Fuck you. Fuck you. And fuck you again.
RIP Garage. We loved you from the bottom of our empty pints.
Well this looks fucking awful.
Oh bravo *slow clap* another marvellous job of a good venue being ruined, pat yourself on the back George Akins. I hope you’re proud of yourself.
Dead to me now, fuck this cunt killing an iconic music venue for his new shit show, piss off with your American themed bollocks, if I want to go to a shitty American bar I will go to America for that! In fact why don’t you fuck off there where people might want this bollocks you utter fucknugget
Being myself, a self facilitating media node this all sounds totally fucking Mexico George, you dosy prick.
It’s kind of long here, yeah, but short here like its been done at random, but if you look closely, yeah, you can see that it hasn’t, except you can’t tell that… and it’s got a few of these in it, yeah? cornflakes packets and soup tins yeah?
Jesus fucking wept.
Well, this went well.
As someone who is half-Japanese, I agree completely with Kaoru – this “Japanese themed night” would not wash in 2016 if it was some sort of reggae night run by middle-class white boys, so why is it still ok to exploit, fetishise, and mock Japan? Racist, misogynist, ill-considered drivel.
As for cocktails served in Corn Flakes cartons? What the actual?
It seems that the taking over of iconic venues which have served a diverse community for years and turning them into plastic, themed hipster joints is just another way of cleansing London. No one wants your racist theme nights or your cocktails from soup cans. What next? Native American pizza night with plates ringed by ceremonial headdresses and dancing chiefs on poles?
Leave the music venues for real fans and go open your pop up plastic crap in a Westfield.
CLICKBAIT HEADLINE IS CLICKBAITY. Who was the tosser who wrote this article? No way is the Garage closing down. The Garage has a little annex bar that you reach from the street, and its THAT which is getting a bit of a makover. If you read the (very) small print, the article states that The Garage is still having gigs and is remaining pretty much the same. Ha ha ha except with so many London venues being destroyed, it’s no joke.
I think this sounds absolutely terrible! Embarrassingly terrible, in fact. The Japanese themed club nights can only be described as shit and playing upto bizarre racial stereotypes rather than bonkers. What a terrible thing to happen to such an iconic venue. I can pretty much guarantee that this venture will fail. Anyone worth their salt wouldn’t touch this with a barge pole.
I’m fairly certain my old group Comet Gain played the Garage a nmber of times in the 1990s. That’d be 20+ years ago. This new project sounds like a dreadful kitsch hell box thought up by Nathan Barley. From top to bottom, the idiots are winning.
London was a world city and a place of culture and a lovely idea, once upon a time.
It’s cunts like this have fucking ruined it. Flooding London with half-arsed, of-the-nanosecond Cereal Cafe spew like this.
Yes, you, George Akins. I’m blaming you. I don’t know you, but I’m blaming you. Because it’s your name up there. You unimaginative, dreary, zeitgeist-half-aping, dickhead attracting, decent venue ruining, culture destroying, vapid, pathetic, pointless, utter, utter, utter, utter, UTTER… cunt.
Absolutely fucking brutal.
I played some of my most memorable shows there. MUSIC IS DEAD….thanks UK.
I think this sounds awesome! I went to the old Garage & it was awful, Red Stripe in plastic cups, shocking decor, music was WAY too loud.
I recently brought a flat in Islington & I love Japanese culture so I will definitely be going to the new Garage!! Good work guys xx
What an absolute crock of hipster gentrification horse shit. This is an important live venue for London gig goers. It has Rich history and needs to be kept as it is. We don’t need another fucking poncey ‘style over substance’ shitty concept theme bar. This isn’t fucking Disneyland. WE NEED LIVE VENUES! YOU FUCKERS ARE TEARING THE MUSICAL SOUL OUT IF THIS CITY. All that will be left when you’re done will be a vapid, soulless shell. You just don’t get it do you?
gosh.. i mean all you have to do is read the article to understand its only the bar that is being changed! When all you negative souls take a second to actually read the article you might actually understand it is still going to be a LIVE MUSIC VENUE! I must say you are all very negative and should probably get out of that dark miserable room you lock yourself in and cheer the fuck up! George Akins you’ve done a bloody good job and I cant wait to go to the REVAMPED Garage! Amen to George!
Oh DO fuck off.
This doesn’t exactly look promising, what a horrible description. Fingers crossed it’s not as bad as it sounds.
Barry – Sarcasm? I can never tell.
Enjoyed watching Progress wrestling there, was a really awesome environment let alone reading these comments about it being a great music venue.
The “revamp” looks utter bollocks.
There speaks someone who thinks cocktails out of soup cans is progress.
You are everything that is wrong with London.
Fuck off somewhere else
The only upgrade most venues need is decent beer, if you’re going to flog over-priced beer at least make sure it’s good beer rather than the usual corporate suspects.
Cunt!
For everyone claiming that you just need to read the article to understand it’s only the small bar – perhaps try just reading the article:
“Newly acquired by the DHP family, The Garage has been updated with three new spaces and a brand new sound system.”
Look, nobody thinks the existing Garage (or the downstairs bar) are perfect. But honestly, give the place a lick of paint and put some decent beer/cider on and everyone will be happy. It doesn’t need to be turned into a tacky theme bar, and nobody wants to drink out of soup cans!
Another wonderful venue closed, this time for a load of twats rather than Crossrail or £1M flats
Initially I thought this press release was lifted verbatim from the pages of Viz as a prank but it appears that it is in fact genuine. What a thoroughly ghastly concept, on so many levels.
Well f%%king futile, keep it chopped out yeah ?
How about you all wait and see what it’s like before passing your negative judgement! As for being “everything that is wrong with London” I’m not from London or live in London! Thankfully! So lucky for me i’m not surrounded by you bunch of miserable sods! I’ll stick to living in the lovely happy area that I am from, and visit as and when I please 🙂 See you all on the opening!!
This is nut sack
If you want rock and roll, there’s always Nambucca just up the other end of Holloway Road.
They had a nice refurb in 2014 but kept the soul of the place.
It’s like a news thump article.
Damn right.
He thinks the world of you
No respect for the opinion of the locals and regular gig go-ers and of the staff. The familliar face is about to become a thing of the past with this new london and its era of tear down and start again, with no care whatsoever about where the people who visit the garage, who I see and would probably unanimously say this looks CRAP
Soup cans.
Come on, this is a spoof, right? Surely.
A fine example of nepotism and Nottingham chic at work… Fuck off back there please.
Agreed
I’ve played 100 gigs at the a garage, upstairs at The Garage and 100 other small dirty clubs and pubs in London. They were dirty and smelly and dark and consequently the only thing that was of any consequence was the music you heard/played. They were grubby and unpretentious and that was in part some the spirit of it. This,…isn’t. It’s trying too hard to be different and kooky, and sounds terribly pretentious.
I’ve played 100 gigs at the a garage, upstairs at The Garage and 100 other small dirty clubs and pubs in London. They were dirty and smelly and dark and consequently the only thing that was of any consequence was the music you heard/played. They were grubby and unpretentious and that was in part some the spirit of it. This,…isn’t. It’s trying too hard to be different and kooky, and sounds terribly pretentious.
People with loads of money, who obviously don’t get out very much, and no clue whatsoever, ruin another perfectly good gaff. Depressing. Guess it’ll be turned into flats soon when this debacle inevitably fails.
Bullshizz! I miss the original venue 🙁 gentrification is a disease on london and everything i love
Damn fucking right! Last revamp was bad enough!
Amelia you obviously work for this loser Akins right? Cocktails in Cornflake packets and Soup cans? “Guests will be invited to dress up and enter a multi-sensory world where shady characters lurk behind vitriolic noodle vendors, and anime girls huddled in neon-lit Izakaysas. Think Blade Runner meets Baby Metal via Tarantino, soundtracked by Annie Mac’s Radio 1 show.” What idiot wrote this pretentious waffle? It all sounds like a nightmare!
What music fans want is good sound and good bands. This is fucking shit. A place for banker twats to hang out and listen to Ed Sheeran. Who the fuck goes out to see a band and then fancies a mug of soup.
Junior PR execs are a bit like plain clothes coppers – you can always spot them trying to blend in.
“I think this sounds awesome! I went to the old Garage & it was awful, Red Stripe in plastic cups, shocking decor, music was WAY too loud.
I recently brought a flat in Islington & I love Japanese culture so I will definitely be going to the new Garage!! Good work guys xx”
Good effort, ‘Barry’.
And yet another turd is laid on the 90s and my early ‘adulthood’.
I await the Underworld turning into a vegan cake and dog-piss café.
George Akins, fella, just stop.
Shit sandwich
Massive pile of shit by the sound of it.
You’ll probably do really well selling a lot of shit to people like yourselves that think what you are doing has some kind of value.
Good luck. I have no doubt that you will be very successful and frequented always by the kind of people that you deserve.
Please don’t pretend for one second that you are bringing any value or have any cultural significance though. I can assure you that you aren’t and haven’t….
Jesus fucking christ
London is so awful. Is this what people like? I doubt it.
I’m with the two L’Eaus: shite
TBH it’s the craft beer bollox and spindly legged chairs I abhore.