Circa 1995. In The Beginning, as they say..........Once upon a time in the sleepy town of Henley on Thames, where a famous London Sunday paper said you could hear a Swan fart ½ mile down river, 2 guys opened what was to become a cult known as The Jazz Café. Located in a 400 year-old bakery, which traded by day as a market and by night a live music venue.
The ambiance was often referred to as walking into your best friends house, knowing you could party till the small hours with like-minded people. You may have gone in as a stranger but you never left feeing like one. Great music, occasionally cutting out if the meter was not fed, and as quoted in The Sunday Observer: when it rained the tin roof applauded, leaked into an array of buckets, every town should have The Jazz.
As times moved on, owners Alain and Dave aspired to develop the business further but found Henley landlords too greedy, so they held a closing down sale and the last house party at The Jazz took place at the end of August 2000.
The guy's said they would be BACK! and less than one year later they took over a venue at the classy Madejski Complex down the road in Reading. This time they have air conditioning, a disabled toilet larger than all of the toilets at Henley, (no more leaky roofs!), wooden flooring, carpets, an elevator, revolving silver balls, a cigarette machine… The only item they did move with them was the ambiance!
This is our shortened story. For the full story for those of you who missed Henley, come down, see what we have to offer and soak up the atmosphere!