Why this iconic Phoenix venue is closing for the summer

Phoenix summers are brutal. This year, the record-breaking heat forecast for Arizona is also forcing one of the Valley’s most beloved music venues to go dark, albeit for only a few months.

The Rhythm Room, the long-running blues club and live music institution, is set to close from June 1 through Aug. 26, a strategic seasonal shutdown aimed at weathering diminished summer crowds due to the Valley’s increasingly punishing heat.

It’s the first time the Rhythm Room, which opened in 1991, will shut down due to the summertime heat.

Bob Corritore, the venue’s longtime owner, says the last show before its summer hiatus is on Sunday, May 31, with a Desert Divas concert featuring Alice Tatum, Diana Lee, Renee Patrick and Francine Reed.

If all goes according to plan, the Rhythm Room will reopen on Aug. 27 with a gig by New Orleans-born rock and soul band Electric Ramble. In September, the club will celebrate its 35th anniversary.

Corritore tells Phoenix New Times the hiatus is a way to ensure the Rhythm Room sticks around for decades to come.

“It was impossible to do any kind of realistic business in that environment. So rather than compete with the heat, we’re just going to take these three months off,” Corritore says. “The last two (summers) just were really kind of sad because it’s too hot. People leave on the weekends. It’s a different world. And climate change is obviously moving these temperatures up.”

Corritore says that reality has been building for years, but the last two summers pushed things to a decision point.

Summer shows, half-full rooms

Even for a venue with deep roots and a fiercely loyal following, Corritore says summer has become increasingly difficult financially, with smaller crowds and rising costs making it tougher to stay afloat throughout the year.

“The amount of business just wasn’t sustaining the amount of expense for the summers. And then it just ends up being a catch-up game the rest of the year,” Corritore says. “I’m actually still playing catch-up, so I just can’t do it.”

In past years, Corritore leaned on community support to bridge the gap, staging fundraising concerts in 2024 and 2025 to offset seasonal losses. That’s not a route he wants to keep taking.

“I really don’t want to do those. So no, it’s the best move. For us, unfortunately, we love being open, but there’s just not enough business in town. We get half the houses of what we would normally get any other time of the year. So summer just is not supported, so we have to close temporarily.”

The heat is on

Anyone who’s spent a summer evening in Phoenix knows what a night out is like. Triple-digit temps at midnight. Empty patios. A city that collectively slows down, stays indoors or leaves town altogether.

Music venues in the Valley sometimes feel the effects as crowds thin and event calendars often get emptier. Some live music spots, including several local performing arts centers, scale back their programming during the hotter months or temporarily go dark until fall.

From 2023 to 2025, midsize venue Last Exit Live shut down for the entire month of July because of the summer heat. (Owner Brannon Kleinlein tells New Times this year, the space is only going dark for a week.)

The Rhythm Room’s summer hiatus isn’t a closure in the doomscroll sense. It’s more of a tactical retreat, one that could become increasingly common as Phoenix’s climate could rewrite the rules for local nightlife.

For now, Corritore says the Rhythm Room is choosing survival over stubbornness.

“Yeah. It’s frustrating. Everybody comes in on a good night and they think it’s always rocking, but it’s not always that way. And it’s just a different world,” Corritore says. “I just don’t think that that is going to feel very good. Basically, the summers have been slow and it just doesn’t make any sense to be open during the slow time of year.”