The Alameda Comedy Club opened in early 2021 with high hopes. Housed in a building that had once been Scobies sports bar and then a Korean BBQ spot on the city of Alameda\u2019s Central Avenue, it was close to the hustle and bustle of the Island\u2019s main drag downtown. By anyone\u2019s estimation, it was an ideal setting for the glitz and glamour of stand-up comedy.<\/p>\n
It opened during the COVID-19 pandemic, though. After putting up $200,000 to renovate the place, co-owner Patrick Ford had to wait and then finally get permission to open up an outdoor-only seating venue, then one indoors with distanced seating and masks required. They even had to close once because an employee got COVID.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought running my own comedy club is something that I could do forever,\u201d says Ford, a comedian in his own right who\u2019s performed at the Comedy Store in Los Angeles and other venues and also appeared on the TV show \u201cLast Comic Standing.\u201d<\/p>\n
At 67, Ford \u2014 who is also an \u201cOG\u201d tech bro who\u2019s worked as an executive at Microsoft, Yahoo and now has his own company \u2014 says he figured eventually that he\u2019d \u201cbe that 80-year-old man in the back of the room going, \u2018You\u2019re not funny kid. Come back next Thursday.\u2019\u2009\u201d<\/p>\n
Eventually, though, Ford and his wife, Lori Theis, a restaurant veteran who managed the food side of Alameda Comedy Club, decided enough was enough. After plugging along for four years, they decided to pull the plug in 2025.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were doing great in terms of people\u2019s attitude towards us. We were the highest rated comedy club in the Bay Area, everyone adored us, five stars on Yelp, but we were just barely breaking even financially. And so my wife and I said, \u2018Do we want to enlist for another five years?\u2019 And at that point she said she had never really intended to stay long-term,\u201d says Ford.<\/p>\n
So they put the business up for sale, after which it was purchased by a group who plan soon to open a \u201chigh-end Mexican restaurant with a nice wood-fired grill. We loved doing it, but it\u2019s all-consuming,\u201d says Ford who is also in the midst of launching a startup \u201cmultimodal data platform for AI systems\u201d called Eventual.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cI couldn\u2019t really justify doing both the comedy club and the tech startup. If COVID hadn\u2019t happened, I\u2019d still be there,\u201d says Ford.<\/p>\n
For most, that would be the end of the story, but this is Alameda, a town full of people who need their live comedy fix. After closing up shop, Ford started hearing from folks.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2018Hey, would you run a show here? Would you run a show there?\u2019\u201d says Ford. \u201cAnd I said, sure. So instead of being \u2018Alameda Comedy Club,\u2019 I dropped the \u2018Club.\u2019 Now I\u2019m just \u2018Alameda Comedy.\u2019\u2009\u201d<\/p>\n
So far Alameda Comedy has started putting on monthly shows on the second Saturday of each month in Alameda\u2019s West End at Webster Street\u2019s Fireside Lounge. They\u2019ve also just started a Wednesday night showcase at the downtown Alameda Theater\u2019s Cinema Grill.<\/p>\n
Ford says the Fireside Lounge shows have sold out the last three months and that shows aboard Alameda\u2019s USS Hornet and at Treasure Island\u2019s Merced Restaurant have also exceeded expectations.<\/p>\n
Like the stock market, stand-up comedy has its ups and downs. Ford thinks now it\u2019s having a bit of a resurgence that he attributes to people being exposed to short clips of comics performing on YouTube and other platforms. He says the only problem with this is that audiences can become dangerously familiar with the comedian\u2019s material as it becomes overexposed online.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe way comedy works is once a person\u2019s heard a set or a joke, you can\u2019t do it again. It\u2019s not like you go to see The Rolling Stones and you want to hear \u2018Satisfaction\u2019 every single time,\u201d says Ford.<\/p>\n
The same principle applies to stand-up, in which audiences don\u2019t want to hear the same stuff they saw on their smartphones.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s why going to see it live is great because you\u2019re hoping to see new material and also spontaneous material,\u201d says Ford.<\/p>\n
The secret sauce of a live comedy performance is called \u201ccrowd work,\u201d says Ford, who describes it as interacting with the crowd and \u201cbeing in the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nina G is one of the comedians who\u2019ll perform at Alameda Comedy\u2019s next show March 18 at the Cinema Grill. She didn\u2019t let having a stutter keep her off the stage, has even written a book about the history of Bay Area stand-up and is the subject of a documentary filmed at the Alameda Comedy Club now on Amazon Prime, \u201cStutterer Interrupted\u201d (stuttererinterrupted.com\/the-special<\/a>).<\/p>\n A fifth-generation Alamedan now living in Pleasanton, Nina G says she\u2019s psyched to see comedy surviving on the Island.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat comedy does is it forms a community. And to be able to laugh with people in your community is important. People obviously want that.\u201d<\/p>\n For more information about upcoming Alameda Comedy shows and venues visit alamedacomedy.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n