This web page was created programmatically, to learn the article in its authentic location you possibly can go to the hyperlink bellow:
https://www.daytondailynews.com/lifestyles/one-last-ride-yellow-cab-tavern-on-oregon-to-close-after-oct-31-farewell/article_2eaa5ebe-0a29-50aa-804c-fc8fa2f1cf22.html
and if you wish to take away this text from our web site please contact us
For many years, individuals got here to 700 E. Fourth St. searching for a experience.
The constructing that Daytonians now know as Yellow Cab Tavern was as soon as the headquarters of the Yellow Cab taxi firm. Dispatchers fielded calls from soundproofed workplaces. Mechanics labored within the storage bays. Drivers got here and went in any respect hours, carrying passengers throughout the town and to and from Dayton International Airport.
As Dayton modified, so did the taxi enterprise. Major employers left the area, enterprise journey declined, and finally the taxis stopped coming.
For years, the outdated storage sat largely empty. Oil stained the concrete flooring. Carpet nonetheless lined the partitions of the previous dispatch rooms. Remnants of the constructing’s first life lingered all through the property.
Then a bunch of artists noticed one thing else.
In the late 2000s and early 2010s, organizers behind Sideshow, Dayton’s nomadic underground arts pageant, have been looking for areas the place artists, musicians, and performers may collect and create. They had remodeled vacant buildings earlier than. The outdated Yellow Cab storage seemed like one other alternative.
Dayton Sideshow 18 occurred at Yellow Cab Tavern, positioned at 700 E. 4th St. in downtown Dayton on Friday, May 23, 2025. Sideshow is Dayton’s annual free to attend volunteer-run donation-driven neighborhood artwork and music pageant. TOM GILLIAM / CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
What started as a short lived house for an arts pageant slowly grew to become one thing a lot bigger.
Volunteers cleaned the constructing, hauled away particles, and remodeled the previous taxi storage into an occasion house. Over time, Yellow Cab advanced right into a venue, neighborhood hub, and gathering place that grew to become a fixture of Dayton’s arts and music scene.
Now, after almost 15 years as a neighborhood house and almost a decade as a full-time venue, Yellow Cab’s homeowners have introduced the bar will shut following its last scheduled occasion on Oct. 31.
To perceive what Dayton is shedding, it helps to grasp how Yellow Cab got here to exist within the first place.
“It started out as a place for a bunch of punks to do things and make things and create,” stated Heather Lea Reid, a Sideshow organizer who now works as a bartender at Yellow Cab. “And then it evolved into community.”
Sideshow was by no means meant to remain in a single place. Organizers sometimes discovered vacant buildings, remodeled them into momentary arts areas, and moved on when the pageant ended.
Yellow Cab modified that.
Around 2013, organizers discovered the constructing may very well be leased to a different tenant, and the humanities neighborhood that had grown there would probably have to depart.
Instead, Yellow Cab co-owner Mark Jeffers determined to purchase the property.
Through a seller-financed settlement, Jeffers bought the constructing and dedicated to maintaining the venture alive. Friends, artists, and volunteers spent nights and weekends rebuilding the previous storage, typically after ending their common jobs.
The effort paid off.
In 2017, Yellow Cab secured a everlasting liquor license, permitting it to function as a full-time venue.
Trivia nights, karaoke, live shows, poetry slams, fundraisers and neighborhood occasions quickly crammed the calendar. Kickball groups gathered after video games. Musicians discovered a stage. Artists discovered a house. People who would possibly by no means have crossed paths elsewhere in Dayton discovered themselves sharing the identical house.
Again and once more, individuals interviewed for this story used the identical phrases to explain Yellow Cab: neighborhood, household and residential.
Co-manager Brighton Riley stated the venue modified her life.
“My therapist says I found my tribe,” Riley stated. “I found my people. I found my place.”
Co-manager Catie Gerami described the venue one other means.
“We’ve all talked about how this place was like a cab pulling up to the worst part of your life and taking you away from it,” she stated.
That sense of belonging grew to become certainly one of Yellow Cab’s defining traits.
From the archives: Dayton’s third annual Spooky Silent Disco was held at Yellow Cab Tavern on Friday, Oct. 27, 2023. This month’s silent disco was a Halloween costume occasion which additionally featured a fancy dress contest. Attendees have been loaned headphones with the aptitude to vary between the inexperienced, blue & purple stations and modify the amount. TOM GILLIAM / CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
Ask 10 individuals what they may keep in mind most in regards to the venue, and you may probably get 10 totally different solutions.
For some, it is the annual Beatles rooftop live performance, which introduced musicians to the roof of the previous taxi storage whereas lots of gathered under within the car parking zone.
For others, it is the time various rock band The Breeders quietly rehearsed and carried out at Yellow Cab earlier than launching a tour behind their first album in years.
Others keep in mind meals truck rallies, poetry slams, charity occasions, artwork reveals, and numerous nights spent with associates.
The tales differ. The affection behind them doesn’t.
For years, Yellow Cab appeared to discover a strategy to make issues work.
Eventually, nonetheless, the economics grew to become harder.
Like many unbiased venues, Yellow Cab confronted rising prices throughout almost each a part of the enterprise, together with utilities, payroll, product prices, and music licensing charges.
“People think operating a bar is a great way to make money,” Jeffers stated. “They know what a bottle of beer costs at Kroger, and they know what a bottle of beer costs at a bar.”
What prospects do not see are the bills behind the scenes.
“There are multiple music licenses. There’s payroll. There’s utilities. There’s cleaning products. There’s product,” co-owner Tara Moore stated. “Everything is more expensive.”
The homeowners stated they’d quite shut on their very own phrases than watch the venue turn out to be one thing it was by no means supposed to be.
From the archives: Yellow Cab Tavern kicked off its tenth yr of meals truck rallies with the Second Annual Birria Fest on Friday, Aug. 4, 2023. Birria tacos and different themed meals and drinks have been featured on the occasion. Guests additionally had the chance to buy on the Haus of Sequins “Punk Rock Flea”. Four native bands supplied dwell music for the night. DAVID A. MOODIE/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
Open by means of the tip of October
For now, Yellow Cab is not closed but.
Regular programming will proceed by means of September. October will probably be restricted to beforehand scheduled occasions, with the venue’s last occasion deliberate for Oct. 31.
The constructing itself is just not going away. Jeffers plans to proceed working his IT enterprise from the property, and the homeowners say the previous taxi storage is not going to turn out to be a vacant constructing.
What is ending are the nights that made Yellow Cab what it was.
Long earlier than it grew to become a bar, individuals got here to this constructing searching for transportation. For years afterward, they got here searching for one thing totally different: friendship, music, artwork, acceptance, laughter, goal, or just a spot the place any individual knew their title.
The outdated taxi storage supplied each.
“I just want people to remember all the shows that they saw here,” Moore stated.
Jeffers’ reply was related.
“We want them to remember the good times they had.”
This web page was created programmatically, to learn the article in its authentic location you possibly can go to the hyperlink bellow:
https://www.daytondailynews.com/lifestyles/one-last-ride-yellow-cab-tavern-on-oregon-to-close-after-oct-31-farewell/article_2eaa5ebe-0a29-50aa-804c-fc8fa2f1cf22.html
and if you wish to take away this text from our web site please contact us
