Downtown

Downtown loses a cultural cornerstone in the Beat

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The Emergency Arts Building in downtown Las Vegas Sunday, Nov. 1, 2015.
Photo: Steve Marcus

Every great city has streets lined with coffeehouses. Fremont East is losing its most essential.

For the past six years, the Beat has been Downtown’s hub for artists, students and other creative types. In its early days, the shop served as a hot spot for Zappos and Downtown Project staffers, a meeting ground where start-up companies turned brainstorming sessions into successful (and not-so-successful) realities. There’s a good chance that at least one of your favorite Downtown haunts exists because of a meeting—or a handful of them—at the Beat.

The coffeehouse relished its position in the re-energized neighborhood, hosting live music and open-mic nights where strangers and friends sat together sipping espresso or beer, taking in flowing poetry, the vinyl drifting up from the record player or an acoustic jam delivered at the front of the room.

The Beat quickly became an integral thread in the changing fabric of Downtown Las Vegas, and now more change is coming. Co-owners Jennifer and Michael Cornthwaite announced on Facebook recently the Beat would be closing in September.

“We began with one little espresso machine, a $60 cash register, a little passion and lots of elbow grease. Please know that we did not fail, we succeeded,” read a statement on the Beat’s Facebook page, signed by the Cornthwaites. “With your support, an independent, home-grown coffeehouse stood tall against the odds.”

The lights will stay on until September, when building owner IKE Gaming (operator of the El Cortez casino next door) takes over the first floor to begin construction on Eureka!, a California-based restaurant chain.

In the same Facebook statement, the Cornthwaites wrote the Beat “will someday appear in another location,” but when reached for comment, Michael Cornthwaite clarified: “At this point I would say 60-40 that it won’t happen. All of the elements need to come together to make it happen. That includes location, lease, [tenant improvement] money, land use, etc. The Beat may end up being a special place that played a role for a special time—and that time might be over.”

Independent coffeehouses hold a different cultural significance than other types of social businesses. Like a great neighborhood bar, it's communal, a place to socialize and relax—but more often, it's a home for creative culture. Fremont East loses much more than a place to get a latte—it loses a venue the community had deemed vital to its own growth. Its closing feels like the end of a significant Downtown chapter. Hopefully, someone’s preparing to write the next.

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