{"id":9718,"date":"2014-11-27T17:11:17","date_gmt":"2014-11-27T17:11:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stylusmagazine.ca\/?p=9718"},"modified":"2014-11-27T17:11:17","modified_gmt":"2014-11-27T17:11:17","slug":"the-good-will-social-club-pizza-beer-coffee-and-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/2014\/11\/27\/the-good-will-social-club-pizza-beer-coffee-and-music\/","title":{"rendered":"The Good Will Social Club :: Pizza, beer, coffee and music"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"photo<\/a>
photo Sam Katz<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

by Jillian Groening<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rising up from the ashes of venues past comes your new favourite hangout spot.<\/p>\n

Sitting at the end of the \u00fcber-cool Sherbrook strip, on the crossroads of West Broadway, the West End and the University of Winnipeg lies The Good Will Social Club. With those dreamy salvaged Lo Pub ceiling tiles above the bar and the city\u2019s best sound guy manning the board, it was destined to be a Winnipeg institution well before the gender-neutral bathrooms were installed. The only thing missing is a pole in the middle of the stage.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want this to be West Broadway\u2019s living room,\u201d David Schellenberg, talent buyer and part-owner of the venue tells Stylus<\/i> over morning coffee in one of The Good Will\u2019s cushy blue velvet booths. \u201cI want to see kids studying here and kids on first dates.\u201d<\/p>\n

Schellenberg\u2019s vision seems to already be manifesting itself. At the venue\u2019s packed opening he witnessed a young man standing with his pals watching Calgary\u2019s Viet Cong, a pint in one hand and a slice of pizza in the other.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was the best thing I could have ever seen, it was pretty magical,\u201d Schellenberg reflects. \u201cI just want to see that everyday for the rest of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Schellenberg, who has previously worked booking acts for Union Sound Hall, The Park Theatre and the Lo Pub (RIP), is just one of nine partners, all of whom bring a special skill to the diverse team.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a situation of \u2018how do we get the best people together to help make the most awesome place ever\u2019 and this is the answer we came up with so hopefully it works,\u201d Tim Hoover laughs. Hoover, better known as DJ Co-op, is also one of the nine owners. \u201cIt was a perfect storm of people coming together, aces in every hole.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to disagree that the line-up is utterly golden. Peddling craft beer, treats from Tall Grass Prairie Bakery and Salisbury House, unpretentious coffee and the second location of every hungry stumble-bum\u2019s favourite garlic-crusted pizza (A Little Pizza Heaven), the set-up couldn\u2019t be more perfect. Oh, and there\u2019s music.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe designed the place with live music being the focus. The stage was even the first thing to be built,\u201d Hoover says while taking a short break between editing buttons for the till, finding paring knives and installing a new keg.<\/p>\n

The stage really is a thing of beauty. It\u2019s deadened, Hoover explains, with sand underneath and curtains on the three walls surrounding so even five beers deep the band can hear themselves and their bandmates clearly.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot only are the acoustics of the room really good but we\u2019ve got the best equipment and the best sound mixing,\u201d Hoover says. \u201cWe\u2019re setting up the artists to play as best as they can.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s already my favourite venue in the city,\u201d local music hero, Executive Director of the West Broadway Community Organization, and Winnipeg\u2019s kindest man in blue jeans Greg MacPherson tells Stylus<\/i> over the phone after playing on the Good Will stage less than twelve hours before.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen they were designing it, I mentioned to Cam [Loeppky, one of the partners and sound-man extraordinaire], \u2018look here, if you\u2019re putting in a new venue you gotta get it right,\u2019\u201d MacPherson says. \u201cThe height of the stage is a huge part of what brings energy to a show.\u201d<\/p>\n

MacPherson has a long history and a real affinity with the building. Apart from renting rehearsal space on the second floor for approximately the past fifteen years (along with what seems like every other band in Winnipeg), he also held the role as handy man for the previous owner. For him, watching the space turn into a sort of one-stop arts hub where you see students, musicians, local residents and the business crowd all inter-mingling, is both exciting and long overdue.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are already just so many ideas happening there,\u201d MacPherson says. \u201cIt\u2019s the whole energy really that\u2019s perfectly centred around music, art and academia. We don\u2019t have a lot of that in Winnipeg.\u201d<\/p>\n

Partner Anthony Kowalczyk, who does most of the marketing for the joint, agrees that it\u2019s part of the venue\u2019s casual, all-your-friends-are-here atmosphere that lends itself to fostering a solid community environment.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can go through your whole day here,\u201d Kowalczyk explains over a Brewhouse, a choice many Grandmas would be proud of. \u201cYou can come to The Good Will between classes to grab a coffee or after work for happy hour, it can be everything to everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAll we\u2019re bringing is something that Winnipeg should already have,\u201d Schellenberg explains. \u201cThis is something that Winnipeg deserves.\u201d<\/p>\n

And so do you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Jillian Groening Rising up from the ashes of venues past comes your new favourite hangout spot. Sitting at the end of the \u00fcber-cool Sherbrook strip, on the crossroads of West Broadway, the West End and the University of Winnipeg lies The Good Will Social Club. With those dreamy salvaged Lo Pub ceiling tiles above […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9718\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}