The Garage is a live music and club venue in Highbury, North London. It opened in 1993 and has a capacity of 600. The upstairs room, also known as the Grace, has a capacity of 150.[1]
The Garage was originally a Temperance Billiard Hall which quickly gained a reputation for serving great pies, as well as being a haunt for local villains in the sixties.[13] The Highbury Mob often used the Billiard Hall as a meeting place. It became the London Town & Country Club 2, a sister venue to the Town and Country Club (now the Forum in Kentish Town), which is when the first live music events began to be programmed in the building.[14][15]
In 1993, the building was officially reopened as the Garage with Pulp being the first big name to play the venue in May 1993.[16] The venue was renamed the Garage by Mean Fiddler, after the Lex Garage which was once next door. In 2007 it was taken over by MAMA & Company.[17] Jazz Cafe and The Borderline were also included in the acquisition, incorporating them in to the MAMA Group's estate from August.
In June 2009, the Garage was relaunched as the Relentless Garage with joint naming rights with Relentless Energy Drinks.It was taken over by DHP Family in 2016.[18] This led to a complete revamp of the whole venue in March 2017 to create an all day bar as well as an intimate 150 capacity venue, The Grace, upstairs. A new layout, bar, sound and lighting system for the Garage was also added.