Owners of the latest eatery set to open in Northampton envision a new late-night spot to provide some nightlife lost in the city during the pandemic.
Tellus & The Satellite Bar, located in the basement level of Thornes Marketplace, will open its doors over the upcoming weekend with a launch event featuring Wooly Bully, a long-standing, all-vinyl DJ event playing playing soul, funk and R&B, from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. on Friday and Saturday.
Owners Nhan Bui and Amanda Riseling said that Tellus will be opening in stages, with nightclub events starting over the next few weekends and with plans in the works to fully open the restaurant and bar later in September.
“There are multiple pieces to our business model; a lot of that is a response from seeing businesses close and feeling a need from the general public about what’s missing and what they are looking for,” Riseling, who will also be the general manager for the restaurant, said in an interview. “Just because you are a nightclub doesn’t mean you can’t also be a restaurant, cocktail bar and wine bar. And as long as we have the skill set between all of us to meet those needs, we can try to do them to the best of our abilities.”
The restaurant will offer contemporary, elevated gastropub fare and an Italian brick oven made overseas will be key for inspiring menu items. Partnering in the restaurant venture is Jeremy Werther, chef-owner of the Strong Street restaurant Homestead, who will help guide the culinary program. Full menu hours are slated to be from 4:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. and a more limited menu will run from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. Bui said he expects a house-ground smash burger to be a hit among patrons.
Tellus & the Satellite Bar, located in the basement level of Thornes Marketplace in downtown Northampton.
“When we talk about our restaurant, part of it is that the pandemic broke a lot of stuff, especially in this industry. When we talk about putting ourselves back together we want to do it in a new way. Breaking the mold to what we feel people are looking for,” Riseling said.
Bui said that they are adding a 5% service fee that will go towards back-of-house staff.
“It’s a way to reconcile the disparity in pay between front-of-house and back-of-house,” Bui said. “It’s been in cities, it’s happened, and it’s been accelerated during COVID ... It’s how a back-of-house is actually rewarded for volume.”
Bui spent close to a decade working as a bartender for The Basement and other venues under the Iron Horse Entertainment Group umbrella. He’s seen the nightlife of the city drastically change as longtime late-night spots like Hugo’s, Sam’s Pizzeria and Mimmo’s Pizza have closed in that window of time.
“It was the center of nightlife pre-pandemic.” Bui said of Northampton. He estimates that about 1,000 to 1,500 people have stopped coming into town over the weekends for shows or to the bars as events and venues have dried up in recent years. Popular restaurants have either shut down or are closing much earlier than in pre-pandemic times.
Popular spots like The Watering Hole and Majestic continue to draw people into the city, but the number of people coming to town for shows or bars has noticeably trickled post-pandemic. Recently, the Green Room on Center Street announced its long-time manager and team would be leaving, and questions remain about what will happen to the cocktail bar.
“It was a big part of the identity,” Bui said about Northampton’s nightlife. He noted that shuttered venues like The Basement — which never re-opened post-pandemic — have caused the city to lose a lot of its character and draw. “What we did over there was a little different than a traditional club. We had a lot of different nights, a lot of different groups. The longest running queer rave was there for a decade. Wooly Bully was the longest running dance night in the Valley. That’s going on like 15, 17 years now.”
Wooly Bully, hosted by Cashman and DJ Snack Attack, will continue to keep some of the nightlife spirit alive at Tellus.
Bui and Riseling said they hope Tellus will also become a new spot for workers in the restaurant industry.
“If you work in a restaurant, where do you go eat?” Riseling said. “We want to be a place where people in the industry can come after they are done working and have food that is good.”
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