Ain't no Passim craze

When I first walked into Club Passim, located in a cobblestone back street of Harvard Square, I was skeptical. Sitting room only? Can this truly be a club? The Passim experience may not be your typical night on the town, but therein lies the charm of this established “folk music and cultural center.”

From its size, you’d think the place was a basement – not to mention the floor and one wall are made of bricks. But the atmosphere is anything but cold. Soft yellow lighting invites patrons to come and enjoy an evening of music and food together. Square tables and mismatched chairs, soon to be replaced, are arranged Tetris-style to accommodate the greatest number of guests possible.

If you want to sit at a table, buy your tickets in advance or get there early. You’ll be obliged to order at least $5 worth of food from Passim’s daytime alter ego and nighttime sidekick, Veggie Planet, whose menu is one hundred percent vegetarian. Entrees can be ordered on white rice, brown rice, or pizza dough.

Even carnivores will enjoy snacking on doughy garlic knots or fair trade brownies with regular or soy ice cream. If you’d rather just get a drink, there’s coffee and organic soda. Though it has traditionally been an alcohol-free setting, Passim recently started offering beer and wine to patrons at tables.

“It’s a nice service to offer,” said manager Matt Smith. “Of course we want to maintain the listening room atmosphere – there’s no open bar – but it helped keep the doors open when the economy fell apart.”

The listening room atmosphere is definitely still there. Passim isn’t just a place people go to see a show; it’s a place they go to be in community with one another. They often know the artists’ music from previous shows at the club since a lot of artists cycle through, playing one or two shows there each year.

There’s a connection between the address, the artists, and the audience that you don’t find in most venues. Singers take song requests from patrons and converse with the crowd as if they were old friends. And, in some way, they are. Passim has been a cultural crux for music lovers since 1958, when it was called Club 47. It makes a point of nurturing new artists from openers to headliners.

Even though the club panders to the folk folks, Smith said, “People shouldn’t be afraid of the word folk. They’ll be surprised if they come with an open mind toward something they wouldn’t normally experience.”

The blend of personalities and generations seated around the tables show Smith’s theory holds water. So, if you’re looking for a cozy, coffee-shop kind of setting some night, I encourage you to be open to the Passim experience, which you’ll find at 47 Palmer St. in Cambridge. You might be surprised.