#beehive coffeehouse
In 1996, Jeff Buckley did an anonymous coffeehouse tour performing solo under a different pseudonym each night. I only heard about it years later. Pittsburgh was on the list, the infamous Beehive Coffeehouse in Oakland, but it was the only show that was cancelled. I vaguely remember an interview with his tour manager, whom he did the tour with, saying it was cancelled due to weather. I was trying to remember the name he was gonna use, but couldn’t: the Halfspeeds! Luckily I found a scrape of an old website mirrored somewhere, the only mention I could still find on the web of that cancelled show.
*December 1996 / Solo Phantom Tour - “2 guys in a car with a guitar”
Day: Date: City: Venue: Assumed Names:
Fri 6-Dec “Westborough, MA” Old Vienna The Crackrobats
Sat 7-Dec “Boston, MA” Kendall Square Possessed by Elves
Sun 8-Dec Day Off
Mon 9-Dec “Buffalo, NY” Spot Coffee Father Demo
Tue 10-Dec “Cleveland, OH” Barking Spider Smackrobiotic
Wed 11-Dec “Pittsburgh, PA” Beehive [CANCELED] The Halfspeeds
Thu 12-Dec “Philadelphia, PA” La Tazza Crit-Club
Fri 13-Dec “Baltimore, MD” Ze Bean Topless America
Sat 14-Dec “Washington, DC” Misha’s Martha & the Nicotines
Sun 15-Dec “Washington, DC” Soho A Puppet Show Named Julio
Most of these venues are gone, such is the fate of indie venues. Spot Coffee is still in Buffalo, this would have been the original location on Chippewa & Delaware, which opened in ‘96. There’s a bootleg of that set called ‘Father Demo’. Kendall Square isn’t a venue, but a neighborhood, but the former Kendall Cafe at 233 Cardinal Medeiros Ave, Cambridge, claimed Buckley. Misha’s is still around in Alexandria, VA, but has moved locations. I actually used to drive down & hang at Soho Tea & Coffee in DuPont Circle, DC in the 4-5 months I was in DC for a design contract.
Popular Southside Coffee House To Close
What to even say about the Beehive Coffeehouse? It’s synonymous with my youth. Venturing down to the city on my own those first times, meeting musicians, artists, writers, it was an incredibly special place. I fell in love there, mended a heart broken there, met interesting people, read & studied for hours, went on dates, met up with friends. So much of it’s a blur, but there are times I’ll always remember.
I cant say I’m surprised it’s closing. It went downhill for like 8 years, since they got a liquor license & kicked the kids out. That’s when it lost its soul. The demographics of the neighborhood changed, with rents too high for the art scene. It also became pretty sketch down there on the weekends, culminating in a murder at the neighboring sister-bar, the Rowdy Buck, in 2017. The Beehive was only the second coffee house in Pittsburgh when they opened, now there are 150 coffee spots. Also youth culture changed. Kids are friends with everyone they ever met on Facebook. Know everything that’s going on through ig & snapchat. There isn’t a need for an ‘alternative culture meetup spot’ anymore. The ‘hive also didn’t adapt to the Third Wave of coffee well. I could get a better coffee or latte at an increasing number of places, so went there less & less. They even ditched their original mocha recipe a few years back.
My final Beehive phase was when I went back to school. I was a regular, mainly cause it was so quiet that it was a good place to study. You’d get some sketch people going through, some old-school regulars that never moved on & some Point Park & Duquesne kids. With late hours, there was always a table & wifi available to study though. The next generation of artsy kids just never discovered it & stayed, but mostly you didn’t need to travel across the city or out from the suburbs to get coffee anymore & kids just meet & stay connected through other means now.
