Relocation blues: Will the Hideaway go away?

The clock is ticking for the Hideaway Café, St. Pete’s state-of-the-art music listening room, which has been at the same Central Avenue location for 13 years.

The lease is up in May, and owner John Kelly says he can’t afford his landlord’s significantly-raised rent. Kelly has known for several months that the end was nigh, and as he’s kept the Hideaway alive on a month-to-month arrangement, he’s been scouring the city for a new location.

So far, nothing.

“I had a couple of exciting potential finds, but they both fell through,” Kelly explained. “And the rents are just too high right now. So I haven’t found anything; I’m still looking at the end where I am, and will spend these last months still looking for a space.”

Business at the 2,600-square-foot Hideaway, which includes a small restaurant and a recording studio as well as the 80-seat listening area, has been up-and-down since Covid-19 took to the world stage. The regular customers, however, have been ever-faithful.

Musician, recording engineer and entrepreneur John Kelly opened the Hideaway Café in 2009. Photo by Bill DeYoung.

The square footage, Kelly said, is “the perfect size. It’s quaint, it’s not a shoebox, it works.” The recording studio, which debuted first, takes up slightly less than half the space (the kitchen and bar were added in 2011).

So he’s been searching high, low and in-between for something equivalent.

“The very first thing I’d like to find is another little café bar,” he said. “But none of that exists. And none of it exists that I can afford. So the next thing is finding a space that I can just move the studio into and just continue that part of the business.

“And then, maybe storage for all of the cafe equipment and kitchen stuff, and then go step by step, like I did a while ago. But I have no idea, at this point, what is going to happen. This is very much up in the air.”

Friends, Kelly’s fellow business people, his fellow musicians and even his customers have offered to help. But there’s only so much that can be done, especially without a secured location.

He said he simply isn’t equipped, financially, to do a total buildout. Several of the promising places, including a site that got as far as conceptual drawings, fell through because there was simply too much work turning something bare-bones into an acoustically perfect sound space, with an attached cafe.

“There were just some expenses that I couldn’t pull off,” Kelly added. “Like, I could go I there with all of my stuff and some paint, and make it happen – build a stage, build a bar. But I can’t make those big things happen, especially if we don’t own the building.”

So John Kelly is still at Square One. “I’m going to miss this room, regardless of where we land or what we do,” he said.

“But I’m optimistic about this feeling I’m getting from many: They don’t want to see it go. I know it’s an important place, it’s an important room. I just want to find the right space. I don’t have a ton of time, but it’s got to be right.”

Hideaway Café website.