He came up with a club where he’d like to play
Musician and businessman Joe Flores designed Crescent Moon Live in Spring with musicians in mind. It’s the type of place he’d like to play.
The venue opened in February in a space that had been a restaurant. He tore down walls to improve acoustics, hired a professional engineer to control the sound system and purchased speakers aligned by laser, so sound travels equally around the room.
The 7,000-square-foot Crescent Moon Live includes a stage, dance floor and seating for 180.
It took about $200,000 to renovate the space, general manager Jaclyn Hill said.
“We went with an old Hollywood glamour look,” Hill said. “It’s an upscale restaurant, but it turns into a nice place to have a glass of wine after 9 o’clock and hear some music.”
Flores knew he wanted to put musicians at center stage. As owner of Stone Studios in the Heights, he’s been involved with the Houston music
scene for years.
“I really want to promote local musicians,” Flores, 59, said. “To give them a high-end professional place where they can show off their talent.”
Flores was a session guitarist in Houston for two decades before he briefly left the music scene to spend more time with his family.
Once he rejoined the industry in 2001, he opened the recording studio and began producing for ThunderSOUL Orchestra, a funk band profiled in a 2011 Jamie Foxx documentary.
He also began playing with rhythm-and-blues band The Last Soul Clan.
“You’d be surprised how many professional musicians we have here in Houston,” Flores said. “What’s more … so many of them have toured with big-time groups, like Prince and Beyoncé.”
Crescent Moon Live features musicians every Friday and Saturday night. Comedians perform on Wednesdays, and salsa bands come Thursdays. The venue offers free salsa lessons before the performances.
“When we thought about opening this, the goal was to provide quality entertainment, so you always leave saying, ‘Wow,’ ” Flores said, describing Crescent Moon Live as “a place that offers good food and great acts.”
“The Woodlands really is a small community, when you get right down to it,” customer Rose Davis said. “Me and my friends love to dance, and we’re usually the first ones out on the dance floor, getting the party started.”
Financially, Flores said he and his partner, Ray Davis (no relation to Rose Davis), hope to gross $1.5 million in revenue their first year in operation. He said the first iteration of the restaurant, called simply Crescent Moon, which operated from 2006 until 2016, earned $1.1 million without performers.
“We’d like to grow a minimum of 10 percent a year,” Flores said. “When people think about opening a nightclub, they never think about all the work that goes into the back end. Something’s always breaking down or needs work, but we know we can make the numbers.”
“When we thought about opening this, the goal was to provide quality entertainment, so you always leave saying, ‘Wow.’ ” —Joe Flores