New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Rough Draft may close unless investor steps in
HAMDEN — Owners of The Rough Draft music venue and bar are looking for financial help to save their dream.
High school teachers Chris Scionti and Karen Robinson, co-owners of the Hamden establishment, want to preserve the venue they have worked hard to keep alive, but after a deal to sell The Rough Draft and transfer ownership fell through, the venue is at risk of closing if they can’t find an another investor or partner.
“I just want this place to succeed, however that happens,” Robinson said.
They’ve reached out to the community for interested partners, investors or buyers who would be willing to put some money into the venue so the shows might go on.
“Everybody who comes through loves it,” Scionti said. “The bands love it, the customers love it, but we need consistency and to invest in advertising and it’s tough not being able to put as much time into it.”
Scionti and Robinson opened The Rough Draft last June. When Steve Rodgers closed his venue trifecta — The Space, The Outer Space and The Space Ballroom — Scionti and Robinson opened their concert venue in the building that housed The Space, hoping to keep a bit of Rodgers’ legacy alive.
When they opened, all but one of The Rough Draft’s employees, including Robinson, worked at The Space, The Outer Space and The Ballroom. Scionti and Robinson even bought some of The Outer Space’s sound equipment, its sound booth and its tables,
chairs and bar stools.
They put their life savings into the venue along with blood sweat and tears, Scionti said. But even though the business has been doing well, he said they need more capital to keep it going.
“I believe in the business and I know if I had deep pockets we’d be able to continue,” he said. But time and money are obstacles and they need more time to build the business.
“It’s been on an upward climb, but we need more of a cushion. It’s been that way from the start,” he said.
“Now we’re left with where we started, with this dream, this place and no money to push it forward,” Robinson said. “We’re near the end.”
In the next week or two, Scionti said they’ll have to make some tough decisions and be creative to find ways to continue.
Since its opening, The Rough Draft has had somewhat of a rough ride at times.
A flood in late September last year threatened to close The Rough Draft’s doors, but with the help of the music community, the business weathered that storm and many area musicians came together to perform benefit shows.
Robinson said at the time, the community’s support is what encouraged them to keep going.
The venue does a lot to attract musicians and audiences to its stage, but the many concert venues in the New Haven area make the business competitive, Scionti said.
“We have a show that we think will do good but then a lot of other venues are having shows the same night and the audience gets split up, which is great for the music scene but hard on the venue owners,” he said.
But there’s something those downtown venues don’t have — a parking lot. Robinson said this is really valuable for a venue in the area because it’s not an asset the downtown New Haven venues offer.
If the only option Scionti and Robinson have is to sell their dream, Scionti said it would hopefully go to someone who loves the music scene and understands it.
“Preferably, it would be someone who keeps it somewhat with the vibe, but we don’t have much say in that at this point,” Robinson said. “If somebody made us an offer, we’d be at the point where we can’t say no.”
She said they’re not looking to squander a potential investor’s money, but rather use it to build the business and create something sustainable.
“The person who comes in would have to have a desire and understand the potential that’s not tapped into yet,” Scionti said. “We’re doing pretty good considering we haven’t been spending money on advertising and if we had we’d be doing much better.”
Scionti said they’ve struggled with reaching a sustainable level for their business, but have always been on the cusp.
“We’re almost there,” he said. “We probably, in retrospect, would have put this call out when we opened, and then we’d be in a much better position.”