Mondays don’t have to suck, but they’ll have to not suck somewhere other than Charlie’s Kitchen.
The Cambridge eatery will no longer host live music on Monday nights, according to a joint Instagram post from Charlie’s Kitchen Shows and Get To The Gig Boston. The post hit fans’ feeds last night (April 2), directly before what would have been tonight’s bill featuring Cindy Crawford Cult, Sapling, and No Room at the Morgue. Charlie’s final show “for the foreseeable future” took place last Monday, March 27.
“Charlie’s Kitchen has decided that effective today… shows on Mondays @ Charlies are cancelled,” the handwritten note on Instagram reads. The caption elaborates that “we did not make this call, but we are left to find a solution.”
Thankfully, that solution is already in place: As of April 17, fellow Cambridge restaurant/venue State Park will host live music on Monday nights, moving the series to Kendall Square. Shows at State Park will be all ages and donation-based, a shift away from Charlie’s model, which kept performances 21-plus and consistently charged $5 for admission. The transition also bolsters State Park’s live entertainment offerings, which currently includes Sunday night shows and vinyl nights on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday evenings.
Live music at Charlie’s Kitchen has ebbed and flowed since the COVID-19 pandemic. For years, the restaurant’s second-floor shows offered the most affordable — and usually the coolest — entertainment on any given Monday night. Once titled “Mondays Don’t Have to Suck,” the series paused at the beginning of the pandemic, and remained on hold throughout 2021 as other venues began to book live music again. Programming resumed last March, almost exactly a year apart from last Monday’s final show.
Read the full statement from Charlie’s Kitchen Show and Get To The Gig Boston here.