When Geoff Rifkin began working at Santa Fe Café in 2002, the college bar was what one might expect: Lots of booze, lots of 20-somethings and some bands that beer guzzling students mostly turned their noses up at.
Rifkin vowed to change that when he took over as a floor manager in 2004. He wanted bands that weren't forgettable - up-and-comers, nostalgia-invoking '90s bands and crowd pleasers unafraid to crank out some classics. He wanted Santa Fe to compete with major market towns such as Washington and Baltimore.
"There was no where to see live music except to go into D.C.," Rifkin said. "So that was my goal, to try and make music happen here."
Now, at least three nights a week, a musical act takes the stage and rocks College Park harder than downtown has seen in several generations, and students have taken note. As bands such as Everclear, The Wailers and The Pat McGee Band have played gigs at the Fe, patrons have gone from disinterested to bobbing their heads along with familiar melodies - and that's boosted sales by as much as 30 to 40 percent, Rifkin said.
Area music hounds have noticed as well. After Santa Fe underwent a renovation and received an updated sound system and professional lighting, the bar was spotlighted as a viable music venue in On Tap magazine. It also attracted the attention of DC101 promotions director Dave Hennessy, who saw promotional potential.
"It's a win-win for both parties," said Hennessy. "They're getting commercials run on a pretty widely listened-to radio station, and then we have the promotional aspect of things that we can wrap our hands around."
With its current renovations, Santa Fe is now capable of competing with regional venues such as the 9:30 Club, Hennessy said.
And although those venues may have more money to attract certain acts, Santa Fe has something those venues don't: Audience intimacy in a booming college town with an unusual stage that looms over the heads of bargoers.
"It was a little bizzaro, the setup, how you have the drums up in the air and it's kinda like you're playing on top of someone," said Pat McGee, who played there in October. "But still, it's a great gig and it's an awesome college town and it's a bummer there hasn't been an awesome place to play until recently."
Rifkin, who has no prior experience promoting bands, said he got his start talking with fraternities, sororities and other students he knew about what types of music they wanted. Then, he began e-mailing bands, and those that wrote him back were the ones he worked with. So when he booked the Wailers' concert last year, he considered it a major accomplishment.
"I didn't think we could get them, but we worked it out and since then it's just been people contacting me instead of me contacting them," he said. "It started with the Wailers and then we had [Long Beach Shortbus], which is the former members of Sublime, and then Pat McGee, and now it's getting bigger with Everclear."
National bands aside, Rifkin has begun concentrating on what he calls "baby nationals" - bands such as The Sketches that are one step up from local but under most music radio radar screens. The Sketches, who played Santa Fe last Tuesday and received good crowd response, is an area baby national breakthrough group that produced an independent album with well-known producer Mike Poorman.
The Sketches lead singer Charlie Bernardo said Santa Fe is an ideal venue because bands can create an early following among younger audiences. He added that college students are known for their ability to recognize talented bands that aren't "the garbage on the radio."
"What I want to do more than anything else is break in D.C., and I see College Park as a cornerstone of that," he said.
While Rifkin is keeping the upcoming spring concert line-up under wraps, he promises that concert-goers will not be let down.
"From what we came from to where we are now is drastic. From dinky local bands back in 2003, 2004, to Everclear ... Santa Fe is just really getting somewhere."
Contact reporter Cassie Bottge at newsdesk@dbk.umd.edu.
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