The last show at City Limits in Delray Beach will take place on April 10, featuring the Led Zeppelin tribute band Zoso. The club announced officially yesterday that it was closing. 
Image via City Limits City Limits goes dark April 10.
At least Palm Beach County still has Respectable St. Cafe, in West Palm Beach, which regularly hosts touring bands, although with a somewhat smaller audience capacity.
Around 12:15 this afternoon, Margaret Gallagher, City Limits' co-owner along with Seth Goldman, answered the club's phone. She cited the overall economic downturn as the major culprit -- with less disposable income, fewer people are paying for entertainment.
"It wasn't a question of staff or quality of shows, the staff was great and the shows were good," Gallagher said. "Even the real music fanatics who were going to five shows a month, now, are maybe going to two." She also guessed that, perhaps, music fans were turning to tailgating to save money, further hurting venues' possible liquor profit.
Gallagher said she opened City Limits with Goldman in November 2006. They renovated it extensively last summer and re-opened it in September 2008. Now, she says, she has no plans to try to open another club: "I've been in the music business a long time but never got into a club until this one. On a good day, it's brutal, but in this economy, it's impossible."
She also said she and Goldman are in talks to try to sell the club, but declined to comment on specifics.
Jackie Bressler, the club's general manager, said she just found out the news Monday night, when she was called into a meeting with the owners. "Since then I've been working around the clock to do the right thing," she said.
Bressler also took New Times specifically to task for not being supportive enough of the venue, citing instead the Palm Beach Post as having been "amazing."
To quickly respond: A basic search on PalmBeachPost.com for the last 30 days turns up just three mentions of the club. One is some information about a recent Radiators show there, and another article, dated April 2, is about the club closing. The third is a piece with the headline "Fans happy to drive to City Limits for a rock 'n' roll good time." The run date? Unfortunately, today.
New Times, meanwhile, has kept a full, up-to-date schedule of the club's events on our own web site. We've also included articles about shows there nearly every week, whether in the music or calendar sections, or on our blogs.
Regardless, a number of shows were scheduled for the venue through June, including Seattle stoner metallers Big Business on April 30 and Danish psychobilly act HorrorPops on May 6. The fate of many of those remains in the air. Bressler said she will try to update the City Limits web site to indicate if any of the shows are being moved, but that fans should check the bands' individual web sites.
At least one artist has found another local venue for his two-date stand, Woody Graber of Live Nation has confirmed. Steve Kimock, who was scheduled to perform at City Limits on April 24 and 25, will now play those same dates at Revolution, in Ft. Lauderdale, instead. Supporting acts are still Crazy Engine and Crazy Fingers on the 24th, and Crazy Engine and Billy Goodman on the 25th. Tickets are still $24 in advance, and $26 the day of the show, and any tickets already purchased for the City Limits date will be honored at Revolution.
-- Arielle Castillo, with additional reporting by Stormie Stafford
