Big changes for Tacoma Comedy Club, including breakfast burritos all day at new spot

Tacoma Comedy Club, serving laughs on Market Street since 2010, now has a second, more intimate venue on Sixth Avenue where you can also dive into bulging breakfast burritos all day in the adjacent restaurant. The downtown venue, meanwhile, will move to a new space at 936 Pacific Ave. next year, across from Keys on Main.

“It wasn’t something we had to do necessarily; it was something we wanted to do,” said Adam Norwest, who owns the club with his parents and his wife Bree Norwest.

At 933 Market St., the landlord — who Norwest said has been great over their 13-year relationship — declined to renew the lease, expressing a desire to do something else with the space.

“For a minute, we were like, ‘Are we gonna do this?’ It’s a huge time and financial undertaking, but the city’s been so good to us,” said Norwest. ”We just needed to find the right location, and the landlord gave us enough time to do so.”

The new venue, a six-minute walk from the original, is a blank canvas — a gutted, 7,000-square-foot box. Merit Construction, a woman-owned firm based in Lakewood, is handling the buildout. “We’re excited about that,” said Norwest. When completed, it will seat about 300 people, about 30 more than the Market Street club.

“It should be a really cool, new, beautiful space,” he added, noting the addition of a mezzanine.

With a target opening in early 2024, they don’t anticipate any entertainment interruptions: Shows will continue basically up through the debut of the new digs, which will likewise offer a full service bar with beer and wine, house cocktails and nonalcoholic options, plus a similar menu of pub fare.

Having landed these two particular locations is also serendipitous in a way, he explained, because they both were once home to Hell’s Kitchen, a well-known music venue that booked almost exclusively punk, rock and metal bands. It moved from 3829 6th Ave. to this kind of odd, under-a-parking-garage unit in the mid-2000s before closing in 2012.

GRIT CITY BREAKFAST ON 6TH AVE

Over in Central Tacoma, Grit City Breakfast opened in May at 3829 6th Ave., last home to Essence Lounge. The adjacent space, with seating for about 100 guests, already had a stage. Shows began in early June.

“I just felt like it was the perfect layout,” said Norwest.

They weren’t actively pursuing a second venue, but the notion had crept into their plans as the downtown club grew over 13 years.

“When Tacoma Comedy Club opened, we were like a cool date-night spot — ‘Let’s go see a show tonight, it’s $20,’” explained Norwest. “Over the last 10 years, we’ve seen more of a special-event venue, bigger-name artists, tickets for $30, $40 and $50. It sells out ahead of time.”

Some of their original customers — even dating to their days in the old Malarkey’s, now home to The Mill by Jack and Adeline on other side of Infinite Soups — “kind of got left out of that,” he said. “I wanted to get back to the roots of that.”

The Sixth Avenue space also allows their pandemic-born project, the breakfast concept, to flourish in a more formal restaurant setting.

In 2020, when comedy shows were on pause, the downtown club briefly transformed into a burger joint. As bookings returned, managing dinner service wasn’t as feasible, so they switched to breakfast, gaining fans for their burritos like the Attack of the Meats, stuffed with hash browns, bacon, sausage, ham, chicken and cheddar.

Then, on the other side, the showroom (which has been dubbed “6th and Proctor”) provides the opportunity to “bring back what we used to do,” said Norwest. “There’s something great about seeing a concert at the hugest venue, but people also like a more intimate setting, too.”

The worst seat in the house, he added, is barely 20 feet from the stage.

“Everyone was anxious at first, but everything is falling into place,” he said. “We’re all excited.”

TACOMA COMEDY CLUB - DOWNTOWN

▪ Currently: 933 Market St., tacomacomedyclub.com; upcoming shows include Godfrey, Jay Pharoah, Janelle James and David Koechner

▪ Moving to: 936 Pacific Ave. (under Park Plaza North), early 2024

GRIT CITY BREAKFAST & TACOMA COMEDY CLUB - 6TH & PROCTOR

▪ 3829 6th Ave., Tacoma

▪ Restaurant: Sunday-Thursday 7 a.m.-10 p.m., Friday-Saturday 7 a.m.-midnight; breakfast burritos $10.49-$13.49, gritcitybreakfast.com

▪ Club: shows almost daily, upcoming include Dustin Nickerson, Louis Katz, Liz Miele and Pablo Francisco; check tacomacomedyclub.com calendar for details