Meg Donoghue Kelly included this photo with her Facebook announcement that The Saint is for sale.
The Saint — which is currently, like all other New Jersey entertainment venues, closed for business because of the coronavirus crisis — is up for sale.
Meg Donoghue Kelly, who co-owns the long-running nightclub at 601 Main St. in Asbury Park with Scott Stamper, posted the following message on her Facebook page today:
“FOR SALE by owners, serious inquiries only. No realtors or reporters, please. Please send private message. Sincerely, Meg /Scott, THE SAINT. Note, we do not own the building at 601 Main. Selling Liquor license and music venue/rock club: The Saint in Asbury Park, NJ. We deeply regret this decision and never imagined we would go out like this but can’t think of another way around it. Love and rockets. – The Saint.”
(April 18 Update: Later in the day, Kelly posted again, saying: “Good friends have taken it upon themselves to organize a fundraiser and we are thankfully already in communication w/a person w/interest in partnering/investing w/us. Partnering, an investor, would be ideal as it would allow us to continue doing what we love and were meant to do vs. sell. That would be amazing. Thanks, everybody, for your support.” The fundraiser, for those interested, is at gofundme.com/f/save-the-saint-asbury-park-nj.)
(April 20 Update: As of 4 p.m. today, nearly $30,000 had been raised from nearly 600 donors.)
The club, unlike most others in Asbury Park or anywhere else, has presented live music on nearly every night of the week, every week of every year. It has been open since 1994, and has a capacity of 150.
Bruce Springsteen did a video shoot for a BBC documentary there in 1998, and the club has been home base for multiple generations of Asbury Park musicians. In a comment made on Kelly’s post, Gordon Brown of the duo Williams Honor described it as “the CBGB’s of the Jersey Shore.”
National acts who have performed there, according to the club’s website, include Creed, Jewel, Joey Ramone, Cake, Incubus, Deftones, Everlast, moe., Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Cannibal Corpse.
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