What’s your go-to late night activity? Do you like meeting up with friends at a bar and playing pool? Or dancing at a club? Maybe both?
This summer, we’ve been reporting on nightlife in collaboration with Axios Boston. We’ve asked bar-hoppers and dancers what they look for in a night scene and what could be better.
For this story, we’re taking those questions to New England’s second largest city: Worcester. It continues to grow and become a more attractive place for people looking to escape the high costs of housing in Boston. But is its night scene up to snuff?
Several Worcester State University students think so.
“I don’t think Worcester lacks anything. It has everything I need,” Sydney Vautour said as she and some friends bar-hopped and sang karaoke around the city’s Canal District.
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“There’s always people out, especially when all the colleges are [in session],” Meghan Walsh added.
Nearby, several bars and restaurants were full of folks drinking, eating and listening to live music. Thousands more people were down the street singing “Sweet Caroline” at a Worcester Red Sox — or “WooSox” — game at Polar Park, the new minor league baseball stadium in the area.
As they left the game, Grace Graham and Andy Schutzman — a couple — noted they live in Berlin and Lowell, respectively. They said Worcester is a fun place for them to meet.
“When we come out here, we’ll go to dinner, get drinks, go to the game. And then if you want to go out afterwards, you can,” Graham said.
Still, not everyone agrees that Worcester suits both dancers and bar-lovers.
Tommy Lee has owned Mai Tai Sushi and Bar for 11 years. He loves the Canal District but says several years ago, the area used to be even busier. Nightlife boomed every week from Thursday to Sunday, he said.
Then during the pandemic, as Lee struggled to keep Mai Tai afloat, a lot of places around him closed permanently, including some of the city’s only nightclubs. Although business in the neighborhood has picked up since then, Lee says the baseball stadium and new luxury housing complexes nearby have made real estate around the Canal District more valuable.
As a result, commercial rents have increased, which has made it harder for nightclubs to come back. Without more clubs, there are few opportunities to dance.
“So a lot of regulars that come [to my restaurant], they’ll have some food and some drinks, and they'll go down to Boston to a club, or they'll go down to Providence for a club,” Lee said, noting they'll rely on designated drivers or the commuter rail as transportation options. “A lot of people like to dance.”
That includes local artist Bruja The Villain, who’s lived in Worcester for decades and remembers dressing up and dancing at different clubs with friends.
“[There was] Sh-Booms, Clubland, the Royale,” Bruja said. “Everybody would squeeze their bodies into the Royale. The Royale was dope.”
Bruja joked that they and their friends were the cool girls “everyone wanted to know.” So they’d often arrive at clubs at around 1 a.m. and dance for just a half-hour to make their presence felt before heading home.
“We used to have so much fun,” Bruja said.
The clubs may be gone now, but there are people trying to fill the void. Bruja brought me to an all-white party at a music lounge, bumping with hip-hop. Paul Hernandez — a real estate agent by day, entertainer at night — hosts these types of events open to anyone once a month.
His goal? Bring a little Miami to Worcester.
“I just really like people having a good time and making sure that they feel the vibe,” Hernandez said. “For me, nightlife is dancing.”
Other people don’t mind the absence of nightclubs as much. They say they’re happy bar-hopping and attending baseball games in the Canal District. They note that new bars have been able to afford opening in the area, including Femme — one of only 29 lesbian bars across the U.S. and the only one in Massachusetts, according to the Lesbian Bar Project.
For me, I like to dance, but my moves aren’t very good. So maybe the lack of clubs in Worcester is a good thing? There’s less of a chance I’ll embarrass myself trying to dance.
