December 09, 2025
Jon Tuleya/PhillyVoice
The Grape Room is reopening as The Grape on Dec. 31. Former employees Mose Richards, Bobby Brockson and Alec Mortarulo decided to reprise the Manayunk bar and music venue after it abruptly closed last year.
The former Grape Room in Manayunk, an independent music venue with history spanning parts of four decades, will celebrate its reopening on New Year's Eve with a bill of local acts.
The two-story venue at 105 Grape St., just off Main Street, abruptly closed in March 2024 after a 14-year run at that location under Brian "Scooter" Hassinger. Three of his former employees — Mose Richards, Bobby Brockson and Alec Mortarulo — have since spent more than a year planning to take over the space, which they're shortening to the Grape.
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"It's the fourth iteration of the Grape," Richards said. "We're just hoping to continue that in its next season and stage. We want to keep as consistent with what it was in the past as we can, and just keep up with the times."
The Grape Room originally operated as the Grape Street Pub in the 1990s and early 2000s. The venue later moved a few blocks away to a larger space at 4100 Main Street before returning to its first home.
Artists who graced the venue over the years include the likes of Jeff Buckley, G-Love, Guster, Dispatch, Amos Lee, Derek Trucks, Silvertide and the Lumineers. It was also a popular place for weekly stand-up comedy.
"There's so much history in the building," Richards said. "There's so much that can be reminisced upon and also that can still be discovered and created. It's the biggest honor on the planet to be able to do this."
Richards, 28, spent four years as a sound tech at the Grape Room alongside Brockson and Mortarulo. She became attached to the venue after performing in the space, which holds 150 people on the ground floor and another 55 on the second floor overlooking the stage.
"I was a musician who went there for open mic nights and open jam nights, and eventually, after months of hanging out there regularly, I started handling the door," Richards said. "Then they needed more sound techs and I learned how to work the soundboard trial by fire."
When the Grape Room closed last year, Hassinger didn't give a reason for exiting the business. Richards said there were several compounding factors and that the staff knew about the pending closure for several months.
"For about a month, we all kind of accepted it," she said.
Then Brockson reached out to Richards and Mortarulo to pitch the idea of leasing the building and operating the business as co-owners. They all live in Roxborough and Manayunk, so they decided to pounce on the chance to keep the tradition alive with Hassinger's blessing.
"It is an institution and we're in a city that's lost a lot of independent music venues, especially post-COVID," Richards said. "We're younger and part of the next generation, and we don't plan on changing the culture itself. We're not interested in developing, gentrifying and making more money off of what it could potentially be."
The trio plans to operate six days a week with a comedy open mic on Tuesday nights, open music jam sessions on Wednesdays and then scheduled acts Thursdays through Saturdays. The open mic nights, formerly held Thursdays, will move to Sunday nights. Hosts will include many familiar faces who were part of the Grape Room community before the bar closed.
The Dec. 31 lineup will be led by Modern Munk, KOSER and the Funky T. They'll be followed by Subsellar, a local DJ who will ring in the new year with a set accompanied by 3D holographic visuals.
Apart from a fresh coat of paint, Richards said people who come out to the Grape can expect mostly the same divey atmosphere. The bars on both floors will serve beer on tap, by the bottle and cocktails. They'll also have a selection of non-alcoholic beer. The building's fry kitchen — long used as a quasi-green room — will offer a more consistent menu of chicken fingers, snacks and other light fare.
Richards, who's also the organizer of the neighborhood's annual RoxYunk Porchfest, said she'll be back on the soundboard at the Grape some nights and hopes to collaborate with neighbors on new community events at the venue.
Booking for the Grape will be handled again by Kevin McCall of Bad Habits Booking. Bands interested in getting on the calendar in 2026 can send an email with samples of their music to badhabitsbookingphl@gmail.com.
