The SoundBar is a vinyl bar and loft listening lounge located at 712B N. Broadway in Automobile Alley in downtown Oklahoma City. Dedicated to the pure enjoyment of exceptional recorded music across decades and genres, The SoundBar delivers an immersive listening experience through high-fidelity sound systems in a comfortable loft-style living room setting, complete with a full bar and sweeping downtown views.
When are you open?
The SoundBar is open for your listening enjoyment Wednesdays & Thursdays 5-10 p.m., Fridays & Saturdays 5 p.m. – 12 a.m. and Monday/Tuesday for private special events like corporate happy hours and non-profit friend-raisers. In addition, our space is available for your private events (birthdays, anniversaries, corporate receptions, non-profit fundraisers, etc.) throughout the week by special arrangement with full bar and music plus catering available.
What’s the vibe?
The vibe is casual, low-key and inclusive. The lounge is filled with comfortable seating and dining tables, records to browse, games (including chess) to play and a library of music, art and pop culture titles to peruse, plus terrific textile and folk art décor on the walls and scattered throughout the venue. The SoundBar draws patrons from 21 to 80 years old, representing diverse backgrounds, occupations and musical tastes, all of whom seem to share a passion for great music and community building.
Our listening evenings are “themed,” each drawing from a wide array of artists and genres. The concept is unique among vinyl bars, to our knowledge, and promises our patrons both a taste of the familiar and an opportunity for musical discovery with each visit. These programs are as diverse as “Two’s Company, Three’s a Trio” (featuring great trio recordings in jazz, rock, Americana and classical music), “A Night of Great Sax” (legendary saxophone performers in jazz and rock), our “Battle of the Bands” series (with the Beatles facing off the Rolling Stones, a popular offering), “Alphabet Nights” (when, in a nod to Sesame Street, we pick a letter from the alphabet and play bands/artists whose names start with that letter), “Brothers & Sisters” (families that “play” together), “Trains, Planes and Automobiles” (artists and bands whose names relate to transportation), “New Releases,” featured on the last Friday of every month, a monthly “Musical Birthdays” offering (patrons select music from a list of that month’s artist birthday celebrants), and frequent “Celestial Jukebox” nights, during which our patrons pick the music they’d like to hear from our vinyl collection and infinite streams. Emphasis is on album sides and not singles. What we don’t have in our collection of 15,000 records, we unabashedly stream over our phenomenal sound systems. We call our approach “Conversations not Algorithms™,” and the audio fidelity in the room enables guests to converse comfortably even when the music gets “loud.”
And in the unlikely event that what’s playing in the main room isn’t your thing, guests can wander into our “Speakeasy” vintage gear showroom, a smaller, more intimate lounge in the back of the bar where you can listen to music more to your liking via our streaming music services on an assortment of superb sound systems we offer for sale.
What’s on tap in addition to music?
Supplemental to the full bar offerings (craft cocktails and mocktails inspired by musical themes, plus other non-alcoholic beverages and coffee), guests can bring in food from outside neighborhood restaurants (including ZamZam Mediterranean Grill downstairs) as part of their evening at The SoundBar. Plus the Ash Cigar Lounge is downstairs for those so inclined.
And did we mention records and stereo gear for sale? We also offer most of our 15,000 remarkable recordings for sale at all times, plus a range of carefully selected and often rare vintage audio gear – turntables, electronics and speakers – for sale.
What’s the backstory?
New to “vinyl bars”? They got their start in Tokyo in the 1950’s as American GIs inspired a young generation of Japanese enthusiasts to listen to jazz and country music in small bars and coffee houses over sound systems they couldn’t themselves afford to own. Fast forward 70+ years, and vinyl bars have found their way to creative cities, like Oklahoma City, around the world, helping to drive renewed interest in vinyl records as a listening medium and fostering great opportunities for relaxed socializing and creative conversation.
OKC’s SoundBar is the passion project of Jay Shanker, an Oklahoma native who has enjoyed a 45 career practicing entertainment law in Los Angeles, Oklahoma City (with the firms McAfee & Taft and Crowe & Dunlevy), and more recently as a partner in the Miami/NYC intellectual property boutique firm Jayaram Law. Shanker has represented major artists and creators through his practice in film, television, music and publishing, was in bands during high school and college, and has been an avid vinyl collector for over 60 years. The SoundBar is his “living room”, and Shanker jokes it allows him to practice “before the bar by day, and behind the bar at night”, and since opening the space has become exactly the sort of third-space “salon” hangout for Oklahoma creatives that he envisioned.
Shanker continues to actively practice entertainment law, and in addition to his SoundBar involvement, is on a number of OKC civic boards, including Creative Oklahoma and the Leyenda Foundation, which promotes artist development in classical and jazz guitar studies, and has recently launched its own nonprofit classical record label.
What are patrons saying?
Patrons give the SoundBar a “5-Star” Yelp rating, describing The SoundBar as a chill, comfortable and unusually well-executed “hidden gem” while emphasizing the high-quality audio equipment, the abundance of seating and the appeal of a room designed for people who actually want to hear music. It’s regularly praised as a classy date spot and hangout for music lovers who want a place for calm conversation and musical discovery that’s more relaxed than the typical bar scene.
What’s next for The SoundBar?
The SoundBar aims to grow its audience and programming in the months ahead by adding Monday and Tuesday programming (regular hospitality industry nights, curated evenings led by local celebrities and civic leaders to support charities, more classical and jazz programming, more album release events, etc.), and to draw in more private and corporate bookings on these previously “closed” nights to deepen community engagement and expand its audience.
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