R.I.P. Trocaderos (2005-2009)
Posted on June 24th, 2009 – 1:47 PMBy Chris Riemenschneider
Opened in 2005 with the hopes of being one of the classiest and most diverse nightclubs in town – but never a really well-run or wisely booked place from my perspective – Trocaderos near Minneapolis’ Warehouse District has shut its doors for good. Its website says, “Closed/Thank you for your patronage,” and it lists an email address to inquire about leasing or buying the building. The sign on the club’s front door reportedly just says, “Done.”
Coincidentally or not, Club 3 Degrees — the big Christian music club a few blocks away from Trocs’ location — also shut down a few months ago. So that basically leaves Epic and the Fine Line as the only music venues keeping the lights on in that corner of downtown.
102 Responses to "R.I.P. Trocaderos (2005-2009)"
[…] Chris Riemenschneider writes that Trocaderos near Minneapolis’ Warehouse District is now closed. He cites a note buried on their website as well as on their front door. Calls for comment from […]
Oh man that’s a real trag…..oh wait, this is great news!! Less guidos and tan in a bottle is never a bad thing.
How dissapointing. I enjoy going to mexican restaurants, and I was looking forward to trying this one out. I love good authentic Mexican food.
It was an awful club. If someone with any sense on how to book and run a club would come along, their club would be a success in the exact same spot.
Hey.
Club 3 Degrees didn’t close, they are planing to move. They still have events, just not as regularly until the move has completed. See: http://www.3degreesministries.com/
‘The sign on the club’s front door reportedly just says, “Done.”’
The Star Trib offices are what, six blocks from there? Couldn’t someone just run over and look rather than rely on a secondhand report? At least he looked at the website.
From years of peeping in the windows — and from numerous news reports — that 3 Degrees venue is supposed to be a fantastic room with excellent sight lines and sound. I really hope a decent music venue can open in that space.
Minneapolis is not a “club” town. I am not suprised this place closed. If I live in the suburbs why drive downtown, pay to park, pay a cover charge and pay even more for overpriced drinks. When my friends and I can go to a local joint and drink for a 1/4 of the price.
Who Cares, next time you feel like opening your eyes, you could notice the city has grown up a lot. Just because a club can’t get off the ground for various reasons - one of them being we may not be used to that “scene” - doesn’t mean it’s not a club town. I, for one, am happy to have you and your attitude stay away from downtown.
Trocaderos was a such a joke!! The food was terrible, no good acts. It would of been a GREAT place if someone knew how to manage and promote it, beautiful venue for weddings, banquets, parties etc. Just never used to its potential!
maybe someone with some brains will reopen it. I can’t believe it lasted this long!!!!
you are all dumb
City Boy - Clubs have never gotten off the ground in Minneapolis. We aren’t Chicago, LA, Miami,NY, etc. I went to a few when I was living in downtown Minneapolis and I opened my eyes and realized they were lame!
Oh well, who cares.
Why is this a surprise? The food was awful and overpriced…$5-$8 for a baked potato? The drinks? Underpoured, over priced, and skimpy. Hello? The greatest irony is that while the club tried to lure the GLBT community into its venue and one of the co-owners is gay, the club was a venue for a GOP party during the GOP convention last September!
Stop kicking someone or something while it is down. Trocs was a beautiful place with great potential, but it lacked good management. Who cares if one of the owners is gay. They still worked hard to get it going. Too bad this happened.
This place was awful. Whatever the reason. Dreadful from the moment you walk in the door.
Trocaderos sounded good on paper, but the place was just too big and airy. No matter how many people they had in there, it still feel very empty and desolate. I hope someone else opens it and markets it as an events venue instead of a nightclub/restaurant.
No good acts? uh, okay… Medeski, Martin and Wood, enough said.
The owners (the Saxons, of the Saxon Ford car dealer) booked a charity event, took the $400 fee, and then closed the place. Unreal!! And no, they won’t talk about refunds. What a bunch of low lifes.
And there was much rejoicing! They got me for more than I would have liked because I found myself drinking loftily-priced beverages in an attempt to forget I foolishly paid a $20 cover charge to get in…
Re: 3 Degrees, yes, you might want to actually check out their website before you say they’ve shut down. It appears they’re hosting occasional events in the location while the lease-holder seeks to sublease it.
Never visited the place, but there seems to be a fair amount of hostility regarding the establishment. I am far too old to go “clubbing” anymore, but any well run establishment will receive repeat customers. If you don’t treat your customers well, you fail. Seems that is what happened here.
yep, great potential IF they consistently had good shows, if the food and drinks were better, and if you could get a GLASS OF WATER at the bar! “We only sell bottles of water…” BAD BUSINESS!
I played there a few times. Too much drama, not enough business smarts. The spot itself was well built and looked nice, but it takes more than aesthetics to develop a decent club. First Ave & Fineline are still the top spots in my mind.
I also played there several times. Loved playing there, good sound, big stage. Its true on the size of the place. We easily had 150-200 people every show and it would still feel very empty. Logistically, if we wouldnt have taken charge and gotten things done ourselves, nothing would have gotten done. I do all the booking and out of the 5 or 6 times I played there, there were 3 different booking managers, out of those three, I met ONE in person for about 5 minutes. What could the possibly have been doing??? There’s no natural draw and the location and parking situations both suck. I REALLY hope someone with some marketing sense opens the place back up because it’s got great potential just as it is.
If only Bob T would have stayed. They could have held weight watchers meetings for him and his mother
Having played there several times and having good nights initially the club truly had potential. It was one of the few venues in town that treated bands like a national act regardless of there local, regional, or national status. The performance room itself had amazing production both audio and visual. The band always had a clean, spacious green room to hang out in stocked with free food, beer, water, etc… The staff at the time really tried to take care of you. Poor management definitely played a part in the demise of the venue. I would agree that many things could and should have been done differently to help make this venue sustainable especially with such an awkward location in relation to the rest of the bars and live music venues downtown. High drink prices and ridiculous cover charges never bode well for a venue struggling to keep the doors open. We knew it was near the end when the club switched booking managers and asked us to come in at half what we were getting prior to that. All in all I’m not gonna bash the place as it could have been and could still be a great venue given proper management.
What a waste of a great venue. The sound was fantastic. Great balcony. Huge potential.
Where will Darren Sharper hold his annual Vikings party now?
God Johnson held several events at Trocadero’s over the years and did very well at pretty much every one of them, unfortunately Troc’s management had no clue how to run a Mpls venue. This isn’t NYC or LA. Drinks were outrageously expensive. Terrible food. The staff and bouncers were rude to their patrons. Parking was a nightmare. Just a mess.
I wish I had a million dollars and a good place to park downtown for free. Would love to take over Troc’s and redo everything.
I have to say, I am grateful to Josh and Scott from Trocaderos (prior to their being fired) for letting me raid their fabulous wine cellar during our events! :P)
Jason Fladager
[…] Goodbye Trocaderos… No more. – Star Tribune Pop Life (This place had a policy that if they couldn’t discern a decent draw, they wouldn’t give performing bands a drink on the house. With policies like that, good riddance I suppose.) […]
I don’t know how much of it is a regional thing. Most clubs have a short shelf-life regardless of where they are. Outside of the few staples, I think the same things happen in NY, LA and Chicago.
The reasons why Trocaderos closed were easy to see if you were familiar with the establishment. Ted & Jack Saxon did not know how to manage a club because their expertise was in car sales. It was opened for ‘fun’ with no true business plan. They allowed bad bad business to take place there & lies were abundant.
They hired people who would work for less than they deserved which brought down morale. They created a hostile/sexual harassing work environment with their actions and the allowed management to harass both employees and customers. There is no doubt it was a beautiful spot with great potential for an owner/managment team with experience and business smarts(oh, and souls).
Bottom line: workers were treatly horribly, customers in turn were treated poorly and what goes around comes around Saxons. I’m glad to see Trocaderos close it’s doors and stop serving as a play ground for bad men with bad intentions.
trocs was a great idea, in a great location, with a great facility. Unfortunately it was horribly executed. Over the past 5 years I attended a number of shows there and found it cumbersome to acquire tickets in advance for events. There were times when I would stop at Trocs to get a ticket only to be told that they do not sell advance sales at the venue. WTF? I’d read in the paper that they could not get along with their neighbors. There were a lot of clues that Trocs was not a well run establishment and would eventually fail. Hopefully a better management team could take another run at opening an improved club at that location.
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