The Bistro At Gateway City Arts

Great venue!!! Still moving back from Boston, this place is good!!! Really good!!!! Look forward to going back.

Great old school venue for a great old school ska band the English Beat. Dave and the new band are fantastic!

I have to agree with Sylus' comments a few comments below mine. Gateway City Arts was a fantastic venue and a much needed jolt to the local live music scene amid the faltering of direction throughout Northampton's live music venues. I was easily able to current and popular indie rock bands like Snail Mail, Soccer Mommy, Mitski, Big Thief, Japanese Breakfast and Mannequin P*ssy as well as solid veteran acts like Dinosaur Jr. and Yo La Tengo here all the way up until last year, and then it all stopped.Apparently, DSP Shows, who had been working as Gateway City Arts/Race Street Live's promoter, no longer has a contract with the venue, and it's been terrible ever since. They've got someone from a local band doing bookings now, and all they're booking are local songwriter types and cover bands. They've also linked up with the local promoter who used to put on shows at Pearl Street back in the early 2000s, so now you're starting to see terrible metal shows being booked here.It was really shaping up to be a hip, cool music venue destination that this area so desperately needs, but for whatever reason, management can't seem to focus on what they did best in the first place, and that was booking relevant national artists and serving good food and beer that wasn't too niche and helped draw people in ahead of show nights.If things won't change for the better, then whatever they have going on right now is a surefire way to add to the blight of downtown Holyoke in no time rather than be a bright spot in helping revive it.

We've been loyal Gateway City Arts supporters since they opened, and absolutely love what they're doing for the arts here in Holyoke and Western Mass at large ... which makes this hard to write. Through the years, the management has embraced trial and error to find the business model that works for them, but some of these decisions have been puzzling, erratic, and to the detriment of what has been, in moments, an amazing venue and eating space. At first, the bar in what is now Race Street Live was perfect for a casual beer and apps. You could count on it being open and serving great food. Then the food went downhill, the prices went up, and it was announced that it would only be open for shows.Speaking of shows .... In recent years, GCA booked top-notch national acts that were very well attended: Of Montreal, Rubblebucket, Colter Wall, Japanese Breakfast, Lucy Dacus, etc! In fact, it was on its way to being one of Western Mass's best music venues: Now, it's mostly tribute bands and small-time folk acts with limited draw. What happened?! Whoever is handling booking now has lost their way.Although there were understandable hiccups in launching Judd's Restaurant, it had so much promise as the restaurant that Holyoke needed. Then the service went downhill, the food quality became inconsistent, and now it's only open for shows. Consistency is so important for a new eating spot—and consistency is the one thing it doesn't have. This holds true for GCA as a whole. The Divine Theater is a beautiful space, and so far they have booked interesting events there (Drag Queen Bingo and Vinyl Night are both a blast), but based on the track record, we wonder how long that will last. Here I speak for anyone I've ever spoken to about GCA: We want them to succeed so badly, but it doesn't seem like there's deep listening as to what customers want or will respond to, and impatience in building crowds and loyal diners for the long haul. Come on, GCA, you could be awesome. Hone in on what you do well, and keep doing it!I can't imagine how difficult it is to do what they're doing, especially in the face of a pandemic and economic downturn. I also understand how easy it is to criticize, and my hats off to them for everything they've done well—but to last for the long term, you've got to deliver a consistently good experience, and to get that right, you need to listen. Focus less on what you THINK you're delivering, and more on what your customers are ACTUALLY experiencing. Currently, there's a gap.

I have seen many shows at this venue, and it's always been a great experience. The only thing that I've started to notice over the last few months is that the venue seems to no longer book more nationally-known artists who were bigger draws. I really hope this isn't a sign of things to come, because the venue has helped revive the Western Mass live music scene over the past few years and provide a much better option to having to drive to Boston (or just not go at all, because it's such a hassle) to see bands I enjoy playing live.