On Sunday (18th), the Brooklyn, New York venue, Saint Vitus Bar, officially closed its doors on 1120 Manhattan Ave, for good. Despite months of looking to keep the location afloat since they were forced to close this past February temporarily, it appears those well-known black doors will remain shut. City officials shut down the venue in the middle of a set by the band Mindforce; Metal Insider reported the closure and shared images taken from the beloved venue. The venue owners issued a short statement, providing a hint of hope for a possible return to a presumed new location while continuing the “Saint Vitus” presents events throughout venues in surrounding areas.
1120 Manhattan Ave. 2011-2024
Saint Vitus Bar to be continued…
Thank you to everyone who was a part of it.
Love and Hails,
Arty, George, David
Royal Thunder – 2017
Photo Credit: Zenae D. Zukowski
Metal Insider contributors have reunited to reflect on the loss of Brooklyn’s great venue in a Headbanger’s Brawl style.
Tom: As a kid growing up in Brooklyn, I was never going to make it Wacken – but I could make it to the G train. Saint Vitus was our heavy metal mecca, and it was amazing. It was the ground zero for the New York metal scene for a decade. I watched Sanhedrin play their earliest shows there, and every time, the room filled up a little more until it was packed. I’ve seen bands that had no business playing rooms that small go out of their way to put on a special show there – I can still feel the weight of the crowd at my back, pushing me forward when huge bands like Anthrax and Lacuna Coil would roll though. If your band had any ounce of cool, you played Vitus. No disrespect to the other venues in New York, but nothing else was built from the ground up for metalheads like Vitus was. My wife and I took our engagement photos at Saint Vitus, pre-COVID renovation (which they were super cool about, and even encouraged us). It was our home away from home for as long as we care to remember. It’ll go down in the books alongside CBGB and the original L’Amour. I’ll be telling kids about how back in my day, you looked for the unlabeled, jet black building with an inverted cross in the window. But the neighborhood always had problems with the venue – and I’m grateful for the 13 years we got, and even more amazed we got 13 years at all. For as much as this is an ending, I sense that the team behind Vitus won’t let it ever really die. In the meantime, I’ll reserve some words for the clown who called the DOB…
Engagement Photo
Photo Provided by Tom Mis
Bram: There are plenty of venues around the city, and they all serve their purpose well enough – a place to see live music and have a drink or two. That’s all we ask of them, and it’s rare that we think of a venue as more. St. Vitus arrived fully formed 13 years ago, managed and owned by fellow metalheads, and quickly developed a reputation as the best place to see or play a show in town. In a city (and country) dominated by Live Nation and AEG, to have an indie venue that favored heavy music become so world-renowned that theater headliners routinely left money on the table to underplay a 250-cap venue was amazing.
To me, that nondescript black building on Manhattan Ave. stood as an example of metal itself. You had to look for it, and it didn’t look incredibly welcoming from the outside, but once you set foot inside, it was easy to realize what an accepting community heavy music is. Other than getting to Green Point, I always looked forward to going to Vitus, as I knew I’d see some buds there on one side of the bar or the other. That’s a testament to the overall vibe of the bar, and the closest I’ve felt to home at a venue, even as semi-regular since it was a trek to get to.
Enough words have and will be spoken about the amazing underplays that happened there. Kvelertak, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Megadeth, and more, and seeing bands like Pallbearer, Spirit Adrift and Astronoid play there earlier on in their career, as well as the countless dope local bands, was great too. I was lucky enough to play there a handful of times with the band I was in, and playing Vitus felt like we’d arrived. Like Tom said, this was a venue for us and by us, and the friendships forged and incredible bands seen will live on like CBGB’s, Max’s Kansas City and the Wetlands did for other generations. I’m hopeful that we haven’t seen the last of Vitus as a venue, even if the original is shuttered for good. David, George and Artie haven’t stopped booking shows, they’ve got the good will of the city (well, except for a few jerks and the NY department of buildings) and the metal community on their side, and they did so much in 13 years that I refuse to think we’ve seen the last of Saint Vitus.
Life of Agony – 2018
Photo Credit: Melinda Oswandel
Smitty: I don’t even know where to start with this. I hung out at Vitus so much, Shit I even hung out with George there a couple of times during Covid haha. I’m friends with a lot of the staff. Vitus was so much more than a venue to me. I cut my teeth as a photographer at Vitus. I had a lot of friends who would play there regularly. Through that and just being there so often I forged some awesome relationships. Vitus was a community.
Goatwhore – 2024
Photo by: Mark “Smitty” Neal
Melinda: Heavy music, good times and camaraderie, Saint Vitus was a special place to be for like minded music lovers. My first show at Vitus was Brooklyn’s own Candiria back in 2015. I immediately felt welcomed and comfortable at this legendary bar which was reminiscent of my amazing, old school Detroit music scene days. It was a place to catch up with old friends and make new ones while cheerings with a Vitus Lager in hand. From Baroness to Life of Agony, Deadguy, Metal Injection’s 15th Anniversary event and my last show, Poison The Well and LaMacchia, I feel so fortunate to have been able to witness and photograph many badass bands (both national as well as local) there through the years… In addition to being one of the photographers featured in Saint Vitus’ stunning book that came out a few months ago. It hurts my heart to hear of their closing, but I know they will keep moving forward and bringing the metal community together. RIP 1120 Manhattan Ave Saint Vitus Bar. And thank you.
Poison The Well – 2024
Photo Credit: Melinda Oswandel
Zenae: We have already lost iconic venues such as CBGBs, while New York has constantly changed into a place for dorms, banks, and a Starbucks on nearly every street corner. Washing away the grit, the Mars Bar, and so much more making the city that never sleeps look almost unrecognizable since the early 2010s. Finally, metalheads of New York found a new home at Saint Vitus Bar in 2011. It is a place for emerging artists to surprise shows, such as Anthrax and Gojira, packing the house for a surprise intimate night of pure metal bliss. It was a venue for photographers that gave intimate, unique shots, even without a flash, testing those dark and muddy lights and seeing what our cameras had to offer.
Others brought in a flash, creating unique images that will last a lifetime for a place that is now a memory that remains. How the place got shut down back in February always felt like a deliberate attack against the venue, and despite the fights to keep it open, it’s time to say goodbye to yet another iconic location. I have many great memories of this venue and am grateful for the experience. I do hope Vitus will live on at a new location at some point in the future. The metal community needs more intimate locations such as this. To one extent, the demise can be metaphorical, with things seeming to change, giving fewer opportunities like this and adding more corporate operations.
Maybe that’s me being bitter, but we’ve been saying goodbye to iconic venues for quite some time now. Thank you, Saint Vitus Bar, for all that you did. It was a true honor to be part of it in some aspect, from a photojournalist, writer, interviewer, photographer, or just your average concert goer to supporting local bands, one-off events, and so much more. Thank You!
Sanctuary – 2019
Photo Credit: Zenae D. Zukowski
Chris: I always had faith that Saint Vitus would reopen their doors and throw together a fantastic celebratory show. Unfortunately, that’s not the case and I am burden with immense sadness. I would have never thought Bruce Dickinson’s meet n’ greet would be the last time I stepped foot in that dimmly lit haven. Fortunately, I’ve been lucky enough to see some massive bands at such an intimate venue, leaving long lasting memories. I will still cling to hope and wishful thinking that Vitus will resurface once again.
Moon Tooth – 2019
Photo Credit: Melinda Oswandel
Ian: Ever since I attended Vektor headlining the now defunct Saint Vitus Bar in 2012, to a compact degree, I thought of it as the L’amour of a new generation given how many iconic events occurred there from secret Megadeth gigs to an evening with Bruce Dickinson talking for clapping, the darkly lit Greenpoint haunt provided the music community of New York something special on the regular even if was just to have a drink or two on a no-gig kind of night, and you know what? The team behind Vitus will present shows in spirit at various venues in in New York and New Jersey. Even if a new location isn’t locked down, we’ll do just fine without them. I mean, as if there isn’t a show happening everywhere on any given night so it’s not like there’s never a show to attend at a space in Williamsburg similar to the Saint Vitus Bar like the Kingsland or the Meadows. Time is a flat circle, my friends.
Stepping aside from that, there have been shows I yearned to see at Vitus, and living in New York all of my life, I’ve seen most of my favorite bands there, with 2019 being a highlight year for me seeing Marty Friedman and his great team of musicians paaaacccck the place with minimal space to move on a windy February evening, Mother Feather going all out for their full throttle Halloween show and Obituary bringing the glorious, old-school Floridian death metal by way of performing all of 1990’s Cause of Death before the holiday blitzkrieg in December.
Satan is great, whiskey is super.
DJ Alex Kayne: Truth be told, I was a bit skeptical when Saint Vitus opened. After all, I had DJ’ed in the world’s most famous Heavy Metal club L’Amour in Brooklyn many years before. The “Big 4” and scores of other bands got their initial jumpstarts to stardom by leaving their blood, sweat, and tears on the coveted L’Amour stage. After saying something a bit salty about them being “late to the metal party” on social media, owner George graciously invited me to the bar for a drink, confident that I would really like what they were doing. He explained to me that he used to see shows at L’Amour on the regular, and that the club was a very big part of the inspiration to open Vitus. That was very impressive to me. And so I went and the second I walked into Vitus I loved it – the authenticity of it’s vibe wrapped itself around me. This is a legit Metal bar. Nothing remotely poser about it. Even the bartenders were music nerds, choosing uncommon cuts like Priest’s “Raw Deal” for playback over the sound system. I had to respect that.
Over time, I started working at Saint Vitus, DJ-ing dozens of Metal shows. From Satan to Sanctuary to Megadeth, Exhorder, Entombed, Raven, Jag Panzer, Exciter, Diamond Head, the list goes on, all of which I am eternally grateful for. Arty and his running crew always made me sound fantastic. One time Arty and I started an episode of the St. Vitus Podcast about L’Amour, it’s colorful history and it’s relation to Saint Vitus. Alas, we never got to finish it. There is no need to. Saint Vitus now has its own colorful history, done their own way. They put together some fantastic lineups over the years, their finger on the pulse of the real underground scene. As history would have it, Saint Vitus towards the end sold L’Amour shot glasses. Fitting, as the spirit of L’Amour was much like Vitus – except Vitus was current, alive, rebellious, loud and nasty, replete with yet another generation of young energized metalheads packing the place shoulder to shoulder. The ghost of the cavernous 2,000 capacity L’Amour is but a blurry, distant memory in my mind. Yet through Saint Vitus, the ghost would still visit me. At the end of a show I was walking over to talk to one of the guys in the band, when I noticed that he was surrounded by 3 hot metal babes. I kept walking past him, and smiling to myself as I waded through the sea of long hair, the waft of craft beer, whiskey, the dress code of black, the sleeve tattoos, the battle vests, denim, the leather, the thigh high boots. Some things will live on forever. I will miss working with George, Arty, and David. Thank you all for everything. Perhaps if destiny wills, we shall work together again. Until then: Long live Saint Vitus, its 13-year successful mission of proudly carrying the metal torch and the history it has rightly and justly forever embedded into the Brooklyn Metal scene. I am honored to have worked some of their most memorable shows. I will also miss my Saint Vitus bestie, Gunther who was most times, literally by my side. ~ DJ Alex Kayne
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