The small sidebar, tucked inside the original Cornish Pasty Co. in Tempe, has hosted rock shows for years but recently went dark after the restaurant's owners decided to shut it down for the summer. All upcoming concerts at The Beast have also been canceled.
In late July, The Beast’s Instagram posted news of its temporary closure and the cancelation of future concerts while apologizing for the inconvenience to local promoters.
The announcement read, in part: “The Beast side won’t have bar service until early fall, but the pool tables will still be available! Just start a tab at our main sidebar and walk on over if you’re here for the free pool. We’ve been lucky to host some killer live shows here, but we hear y’all who want The Beast as your go to local watering hole and pool playing spot and we’re looking forward to bringing that back for you.”
While the announcement’s wording hinted that live music wouldn’t occur at The Beast going forward, Cornish Pasty Co. owner Dean Thomas told AZCentral it will return in the fall, albeit on a selective basis.
“We will be booking bands when there’s something extra special that’s guaranteed to draw the necessary crowd,” Thomas told AZCentral. “But we also want to take it back to the vibe we had when we first opened. When everyone was welcome and not being charged an entry fee to see a band they had no interest in.”
Thomas also cited the summer slowdown as the reason for temporarily shutting down The Beast. He mentioned that changes to the live shows were prompted by the difficulty in drawing large enough crowds at certain gigs.
“As most people know, summers are always tough for the industry,” Thomas told AZCentral, “And although there’s been some packed shows, it was more common that we would have the main act playing to the opening bands, and very little interest from the regulars we once had.”
Two employees of The Beast who bartendended and handled booking were fired because of the closure.
“Unfortunately, yes, we laid off the promoters who were also bartenders,” Thomas told AZCentral. “The original idea was to work the last two weeks of shows and cancel the remaining shows after that. But at the time, there weren't any shows for two weeks so the decision was made to close there and then.”
Phoenix New Times was unable to reach Thomas for further comment on the situation.
Background of The Beast
The Beast opened in the mid-2000s as a clandestine side bar inside Cornish Pasty Co. in Tempe. (The bar’s name is a tribute to notorious Tempe dive the 6 East Lounge, which was located just off Mill Avenue and nicknamed as “The Beast” by its regulars.)As New Times wrote in 2021, getting inside The Beast was an experience that involved “weaving through the Cornish, past the bathrooms, and toward the red, glowing light on the other end of the restaurant.”
Briannin Gross, a local promoter and longtime patron of The Beast, says she’s always dug the bar’s vibe.
“It has the perfect synthesis of a cool-looking kind of antiquated place but also a scuzzy dive bar where you could see shows and talk to all the local people you want to hear from the most and just hang out and have a good time,” Gross says.
While functioning as a place where Cornish Pasty Co. patrons and other locals can drink, shoot pool or play darts, The Beast also hosted dance parties, drag nights and concerts of the rock, punk and metal variety.
While serving as a spot where Cornish Pasty Co. patrons and other locals could drink, shoot pool, or play darts, The Beast also hosted dance and drag nights.
In 2015, Gross and Josh Smusz began staging B-Sides, a monthly “indie/post-punk/alternative dance night of sorts” at The Beast. The event drew big crowds to the bar, she says.
“They didn't have any nights before that and took a chance, gave us every third Thursday and we packed it out, so they gave us Saturdays,” Gross says. “It let us do our own thing. I think that's why people liked going to The Beast: you just do your own thing the way you want. There's something really exhilarating about that.”
Live music at The Beast
The Beast also served as a 100-person capacity venue for smaller concerts of the rock, punk, hardcore and metal variety.Gross says The Beast charged a “really affordable” rental fee, providing a low barrier of entry for up-and-coming local promoters and bands to use as a stepping stone into the Phoenix music scene.
Phoenix concert promoter Morgan Saoirse, who launched DNR Booking with boyfriend Corey Matayabas in March, says The Beast was a good place to get their start.
“It wasn't too expensive to rent out and it had a decent-sized capacity. Because we’re a newer booking company, we were able to have shows there to build up our business so we could build towards some of the bigger local venues and work with larger bands.”
Concert promoter Kimberly LaRowe, owner of 13th Floor Entertainment, told New Times via Facebook that The Beast was conducive to the needs of up-and-coming artists.
“It was just nice to have a place for developing bands to play,” LaRowe says.
‘Really like a blow to the gut’
News of The Beast’s temporary closure and cancelation of all its upcoming shows came as a shock to local promoters and fans of the bar. Saoirse says DNR booking had multiple upcoming concerts at The Beast scheduled in the late summer and fall. She got a heads-up from one of the bar’s bookers but was still aghast at the news.
“We had these shows booked out and there weren’t any issues. And then we get a message saying, ‘Oh my god, I'm so sorry but I just found out I got laid off and they're not doing shows anymore,” she says. “So it was really like a blow to the gut.”
LaRowe, who had two upcoming shows booked at The Beast, was also shocked by the news.
“Pulling the plug without any notice is definitely lame in any case,” she told New Times via Facebook.
LaRowe and Saoirse both scrambled to find new venues for their upcoming concerts that were booked at The Beast. Other gigs couldn’t be saved. DNR Booking was forced to cancel a concert headlined by local metal band Another Days Demons, while 13th Floor Entertainment axed an Aug. 13 performance by Seattle thrash act Oxygen Destroyer.
The Beast’s new groove
Laura Amphlett, an assistant manager at Cornish Pasty Co. in Tempe, says The Beast will offer live music again when business picks up again after the summer. As for what kinds of concerts will be featured is “still up in the air.”“We’re going to resume shows, but we’re going to have less shows and be more selective with what we’re doing.”
Gross says while its understandable why The Beast’s owners might have an aversion to hosting rowdy punk and metal shows, the bar’s decision “feels like a betrayal.”
“It's complicated because I really do love The Beast, but, for me, I don't like entertaining venues or local businesses that make a habit of betraying the locals that make it what it is,” Gross says. “It doesn't set a good precedent, it's not fair to people they screwed over for someone else to step in and slurp it up. I don't want to support that.”
