Rittenhouse Dance Bar Medusa Lounge Is Not Closed

Despite what you may have read, or heard, or saw, Medusa Lounge, the Rittenhouse subterranean dive bar open only on Thursdays through Saturdays, 10 p.m. to 2 a.m., is still an operating business.

Three days ago, Newsworks outlined the closure caused by, among other things, an eviction notice filed by the bar's landlord due to a few months' unpaid back rent. The bar was reportedly closed last Thursday (August 18), and nobody answered the phone. Its Yelp page explicitly states "Yelpers report this location has closed", its Facebook page hasn't been updated since the end of June, and its web domain leads to nowhere. Plus, the week before, on August 6, the bar held this event, which, not for nothing, is pretty misleading given the context of the situation:

this is the last one fuckers

A photo posted by Diamond Girl (@erinmccurdie) on Aug 6, 2016 at 12:03pm PDT

Newsworks has since issued an update, citing that the original report was "premature" and that the bar was open for business on Saturday night:

Reports of Medusa Lounge's demise may have been premature. Portia Morales, manager of Medusa Lounge, called NewsWorks Saturday night to say that the dispute with landlord Marc Ginsburg had been resolved as of Monday, but due to a miscommunication the eviction notice was still posted on Thursday. The bar was closed Thursday night. However, according to Morales, the bar is not closing. Morales told NewsWorks that there was confusion about the bar's status due to a Yelp listing stating that Medusa Lounge was closed, and a lapse in the bar's website domain name registration. Belief that the bar had closed was further compounded by an event held on August 6th at Medusa Lounge called "Work the Box, One last time... then it's Dead! R.I.P. The Club" On social media, the bar's latest postings were dated June 21st.

Neither Ginsburg nor his attorney have confirmed that they have accepted rent and dropped the eviction. The bar was hit with seven code violations from Licenses & Inspections in April, and according to the L&I website, some of the violations remain open and in non-compliance.

A reporter did confirm that the bar was open for business on Saturday night.

So, there you have it. Medusa is still up and running, slinging city-wides and hosting ragers into the wee hours of the weekend morn.