Before finding the church they would renovate in a restaurant, a music club and Speakeasy, Matt and Nikki Ray settled on the name Sanctuary.
The 26 -year -old married couple, owners of the Eat My Beats music store, originally thought to create a performance room with a bar on their property, 4755 Jug Factory Road. But to level it, the bases alone would have cost almost as much as they spent renovating the Center of Faith Light Conquerors, at 1710 25th Ave., just a block of Avenue Greensboro.
One of the other places they had considered was another church in Alberta City. They almost made an offer there, but then the pandemic blow Covid-19. The shelves consider that a kind of blessing, because retaining the project meant that they found the other ideal location.
Their name chosen has several meanings, the evidence of course of the old church. But it is also because “music is our sanctuary,” said Matt Ray.
When they found the location of the sanctuary, all that the rays had to do was add “the 25”.
The Sanctuary of the 25 feels large inside, with booming ceilings and elongated windows and mirrors, with predominant woodwork everywhere, and a value of chairs, sofas, tables, works of art and more forward, the relaxed speakeasy area.
You enter the sanctuary on the side, however, through massive doors opening in the spacious main dining room, where you choose from a menu of flank steak to shrimp and grains, macs and lobster cheese to cheeseburger cursors, with breasts, chorizo salads, street corn mosses, pork dates, salads and salads and salads more. The small plates and the parauxs are on the bill, the items that Rays thought that friends gathering to eat and enjoy the music could wish to mix and exchange.
A long wooden wooden bar 52 beer taps and serves drinks, including seven deadly sins: lust, for example, is a Bubblegum infused rest, an orange, agave and lemon liqueur; Wrath is Jamaican rum, Mazzura and sweet vermouth. The sanctuary bar also offers plans, sprritzes and other special cocktails.
An angle music scene faces the guests, with acts reserved for three or four nights a week, depending on the football match hours Crimson Tide. In the backyard of the sanctuary, the Rays built a green space with another step. This will see more use for more equitable months, perhaps for greater acts of tour, and also after having time to push the folds, to lower the workflow.
A green room is underway in a second floor / mezzanine area at the front, an apartment in a bedroom with bathroom, to offer an additional comfort layer for travel musicians. Players must be satisfied not only by this kind of approval, but also by the scene mix, because the Rays have many years of experience during their other business. Eat My Beats worked with the city and other reception stages, lights and sound systems for local concerts on a larger scale such as the Summer Live at the Plaza series, the Druid City Music Festival, the Druid City Arts Festival and the Kentuck Festival of the Arts.
“I want musicians to want to play here,” said Matt, not just for money.
The congregation of the old church had decreased to about 30 years old, and although the building bones were solid, it was not well maintained inside: the ceilings descended, the windows were on board. Built in the 1920s, the building had also served as a warehouse, obvious in its dimensions. The only things that remain of the church are the ceiling, the floors and the external walls, said Matt.
But they both knew that the place was fair as soon as they saw it.
“We did the same thing when we bought our house. We have done the same thing on several other properties that we have. We both have a feeling always, and we, fortunately, this is how we have been getting married for 26 years,” said Nikki Ray. “And everything we buy always needs a workplace (lot), so it’s not new.”
Tribute to its recent past, the Rays have set up stained glass film panels along the front wall of the speakeasy, through which daylight shines. Lamps and other furniture, deep comfortable seats, they found in savings and antiques stores, from clues on Facebook Marketplace and elsewhere. Until the end of the construction, the Rays stored their finds at Eat My Beats.
“Because we pushed it so long in the back, we almost forgot what we had,” said Nikki. Their tastes coincided mainly, except on the occasional bizarre carved piece that Matt favored.
“I think between my decor, then the nervousness, the strangeness of Matt, it works,” said Nikki.
Originally targeting an atmosphere of the 1920s, the Rays found real artifacts difficult to get. Even when you could come by them, hundred-year-old furniture was often decrepitable to the point of non-functionality. Thus, the speakeasy is more like a real sprawling den, a mixture of eras and styles, all motivated by the instincts of the rays for what would work, with an accent put on heat and comfort, a place that invites you to bask.
“Someone made a good point, and they hit the nail on their heads. They said:” I feel like I was in the haunted manor at Disney World “, said Nikki laughing. “And I am like, Oh my God is really the case.”
Although it may not have been exact aesthetics in mind, the Rays definitely sought something more, a quality, a feeling of something different.
“Some comments that people made really let me know that we did what we wanted, we checked the boxes,” said Nikki. “One of them was” I don’t feel like I am in Tuscaloosa “. This is exactly what I want you to feel when you cross the door, to feel like you were in a Denver, or a raleigh, or Asheville … I think we have accomplished it.”
The revival of the city center of Chattanooga played a role in their thoughts, after the journey of comparative analysis sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce of the summer 2019 of the Alabama West 2019 in the shadow of Lookout Mountain. The Rays launched ideas to other Tuscaloosa movers and shakers, but finding no takers, decided to carry out the project.
The Tuscaloosa’s breeding plan focused on the idea that the city of Druid needs not only to continue to attract 40,000 students all around the University of Alabama, but to keep them interested in staying after obtaining the diploma.
“After obtaining the diploma, they are ready to go to Denver, or to Dallas, in a big city,” said Nikki. The RAYS reflection process for the company: they cannot contribute to the professional aspect of high technology and well paid, but they can help improve the quality of life, add to the so-called economics of experience.
“We can bring nice things,” she said.
The previous plan, for the music club of Eat My Beats, did not include a restaurant, just music and cocktails. The size of their discovery encouraged them not only to evolve and add a menu, but to break it into distinct concepts: the speakeasy, the dining room, the courtyard, which can contain hundreds, although they do not yet reserve acts on this scale. Until the place built a fans base, the rays mainly reserve the singer-songwriter, the acoustic acts. The emissions generally start early, flowing from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., except the nights of the weekend, when the songs can go from 7 to 9 or 10.
In addition to music, the sanctuary is impatient to use this Speakeasy front room, suitable for wine tastings, readings, receptions, celebrations and other intimate rallies. The rays hope to program a variety of creative and entertaining events.
“I want to present the arts in a way no one else in Tuscaloosa does,” said Matt.
Eating my beats was fine, said the Rays, so the sanctuary was not mainly intended for a money adventure; More than one passionate project.
“We wanted to make a brand on Tuscaloosa,” said Nikki.
The sanctuary on the 25th opens at 11:00 a.m. seven days a week and remains open until 9, except on Fridays and Saturdays, when they get up until midnight. Lunch is easier to find a seat and dinner reservations can be made via the site, www.thesanctuayon25th.com.
Reach Mark Hughes Cobb in mark.cobb@tuscaloosanews.com.