Midnight Run Cafe in Waterloo is serving more than coffee and cocktails. The uptown staple, located at 84 King St. N., is making a name for itself as an event space with comedy shows, live music showcases and poetry open mics. The eclectic mix of events is the work of Midnight Run’s event manager, Nathan Savoy.
Booking events and creating community was not a part of Savoy’s plan after graduating from the University of Waterloo in 2022. Savoy is a musician and took a job at Midnight Run to support himself while working on his music.
“The cafe was sort of just a chill job that I could do while I was doing that. It’s a great space, and then I found out that the ownership was excited about the idea of doing live music and different events, so I offered to start running them,” he said.
Savoy began programming open mic nights, which he said brought in an eclectic mix of talent to the cafe. Following the success of the open mic nights, he started to book in music acts, poetry open mics, DJs, and comedians.
“It’s definitely community-driven. People will come in with an idea for an event, and if it’s not completely crazy, we can make it work,” Savoy said.
Midnight Run is filling a void in smaller event spaces in Waterloo. Savoy said it can accommodate audiences of 40 to 100 people, depending on the event. He added that the audiences for the shows are as eclectic as the shows themselves.
“That’s been the other cool thing. It is a lot of students, but it’s also a super diverse crowd. There are all ages. People come and they’ll bring their parents out to shows,” he said. “It’s become a place for people to out.”
While live music events have been popular at Midnight Run, Savoy said he has been surprised at the popularity of the venue’s comedy shows. He has partnered with Shocked & Appealed Productions to program comedy open mic nights and shows with professional comedians from across Ontario.
“Comedy is definitely the most surprising to me in terms of the level of success we’ve been having with it. I was never involved in that scene before working with Eric and Bob to run those shows,” he said.
Savoy is still pursuing his musical passions and has played shows at Midnight Run. He is excited about seeing the community of local musicians grow and connect with each other.
“I’m a musician and I’m in a band called Avro Arrows and we’ll play in other venues in town. But then we’ll see people meet at our open mics and sometimes people will spontaneously form a new band and then we’ll see them coming back to perform,” Savoy said.
Helping musicians and bands build their audiences is another way Savoy said Midnight Run is helping to build community.
“We’ve tried to bake into the events a sense of progression. You can come out to the music open mic and then from there we can book you into a show or get you on the band showcase. There’s kind of room to grow within the events we host,” he said.
With a lineup of events in February, from a folk night to a pro-am comedy show, Savoy hopes more people will come out and discover something new.
“Midnight Run is still very much a coffee shop first. Then people come in, see the stage or the PA system and ask if we host events. It feels like a place that people have started to adopt as their own,” Savoy said.
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