The Velvet Lounge

***** Musicians BEWARE ***** First, to be fair, its a really nice venue to play. Very small upstairs, but pair with that the excellent acoustics and sound system, it makes for a good sounding and personal audience experience. Unfortunately, its not worth it if your a musician. We were told we were playing for a portion of the bar tab. We drove an hour and a half, hauled all our equipment thru DC, stayed from 7 to nearly 11:30, and when we went to collect our pay were told very nonchalantly "don't worry about it." Don't worry about it? Yeah "don't worry about it.... if you were a 'touring' band we would have thrown you $20...you were given free drinks that's more than enough, be thankful." Yeah, given 2 of the cheapest beers in the house per band member....wonderful. Take heart musicians, I can tell you from experience that there still are bars and venues that value entertainment and understand the benefits of creating a mutually beneficial relationship with bands. This unfortunately is not one of them. I strongly suggest refusing to play at this one.

This dark grungy bar/venue offers local artists a solid platform to kickoff. While I really respect the velvet lounge for that, their bar is a bit lacking and for some ungodly reason there is no bar upstairs by the stage. The bartender downstairs didn't know their beers and had trouble locating the beer I picked. To make matters even worse, the selection of drinks was questionable at best. I feel like it's a travesty that the dance floor features no bar what so ever upstairs. As a request to the owner, add a bar upstairs and I would be comfortable providing a higher review.

Decent beer selection (and cheap!) downstairs, while the shows I've seen upstairs have been good. Great acoustics. I haven't been involved with booking, but as an audience member, I'd go back there for a show.

Velvet Lounge has been around for as long as I can remember and though it doesn't have the best atmosphere, it is what it is... a great little dive bar. The bar is somewhat limited, but very inexpensive. Some nights you can catch a DJ spinning tunes in the front window and that is always a treat, or a live band in the upstairs room.

really different blends of original live music, DJs for years. can walk in one night to metal. another to DIY. another to older and recent hip-hop. another to minimal and house. dark dive bar with colorful staff, cheap drinks. sick and one-of-a-kind spot. especially in this city.

If I could rate this place with less than one star, I would. I came here to see a friend play and was overwhelmed the entire night with the most dense cloud of piss smell I have ever had the displeasure of encountering. It was something akin to the smell 87 alcoholic cats would bestow upon one poor, defenseless litterbox, one already overrun with never-scooped urinal-cake-scented cat litter. The one, lonely star here belongs solely to the friendly staff (for whom I feel awful, since they have to spend God knows how many hours on shift here), as well as the decent sound setup upstaira. I've seen dives--this truly takes the urinal cake. You'd probably have to pay me to experience this again.

Sounds like these people have never been to a bar before. It's definitely a dive bar but that's my favorite kind. Great music all night and the bartenders were quick.

Terrible! They charge a cover, but there's no entertainment and the place is empty. Don't pay. Walk away. Dodge City next door is way better.