RIOT ACT COMEDY
RIOT ACT COMEDY
“Comedy seemed like a perfect fit for DC and we thought we had the team to make it work.”
After opening three successful bars in DC’s Penn Quarter neighborhood, I was introduced to a comedy group that wanted to open a new venue near the Capital One Arena. The concept and name Riot Act wasn’t mine, but seemed solid enough, and the business plan we wrote made sense. I joined up and we got to work. The space we found was huge, with 3,000 feet on the corner of 8th & E NW, a large sidewalk patio and 10,000 feet in the cavernous basement.
The buildout was challenging, but we managed to get it done and opened the doors in August 2011. While we had some successful shows, we just never had enough business to feed such a large beast. We closed the doors in less than a year.
The question was, what could work in such a massive space that was designed for shows? We went to work and came up with Penn Social, a sports bar, DJ and live music venue that opened in August 2012.