By Kalena Reynolds | Staff Writer
The Texas Music Cafe has been bringing live music to Waco for over 27 years. While the company has been closed for the past nine months, it has officially reopened at 110 S Sixth St. in downtown Waco.
Before the venue change, the Texas Music Cafe was located on Washington Avenue. Chris Ermoian, executive producer of the Texas Music Cafe, said they began looking to move once rent started to rise downtown due to growth in Waco.
“We had a 75-seat venue that cost $6,000 a month to rent, and I mean, we’re in the music business, so we were struggling to keep it open at that kind of price,” Ermoian said. “I found a place that was basically twice the size and half the price.”
In prior years, the Texas Music Cafe was broadcast on public television to 150 countries and 94 million homes. It has since shifted its platform to YouTube, where it now averages around 150,000 views a month.
In addition to highlighting artists in the community, the Texas Music Cafe has an impressive catalogue of performances from the last 27 years — including Willie Nelson and Lyle Lovett — that has earned it a wall of recognition from the Music Association of Central Texas.
“A lot of them are dead and gone,” Ermoian said. “Some of them were just starting out, and I recorded them when they were youngsters, and now they’re Grammy Award winners.”
The musicians on stage aren’t the only ones persevering at Texas Music Cafe. Ermoian said that over the years, the company has gone through many financial ups and downs, always finding a way to make something work on its budget.
“At one time, we would put on three bands a night,” Ermoian said. “We had limousines. We had models with Texas Music Cafe clothing. And we had all kinds of stuff like that. When we have the money to do it, we can do even more amazing things. When we have a shoestring budget, we do what we can do on the shoestring. I mean, over 27 years, you can imagine there’s been a lot of ups and downs, but we haven’t given up. It’s a lot of the same people that are making the show now and the same people that started doing it 27 years ago, and the reason why is because they believe in it.”
Longtime viewer Richard Childers said Texas Music Cafe has done a great job revamping the new venue and turning it into a place where people can enjoy live music.
“They’ve done a fine job, going from just a shell,” Childers said. “Last I heard, they had to carry out tons of debris and had to clean it out just to be able to start on it, but it’s been beautifully done, once again on a shoestring budget.”
The team has already hosted film screenings and a few artist shows in its new location. However, it plans to close for the next three weeks to build a new stage and will reopen on April 5 with a show featuring artist Matt Mason.
