The sometimes brash, sometimes soft-spoken founder of the Sled Island music festival has sold his live-music watering hole.
Eight-and-a-half years after opening Broken City, Zak Pashak has called it a day, selling the venue to Andrew Brassard, co-owner of Goliath’s Spa and Texas Lounge, and Charlie Hinton, co-owner of Concept Lounge.
“With bars, it’s nice to start them and get them going, but… I don’t necessarily want to commit to it for the rest of my life,” says Pashak.
Calgary’s fickle and competitive nightclub scene, onerous business taxes, a lingering recession and nagging road construction factored into the decision to sell.
“We definitely had a bad year this year,” he says. “The street in front of Broken City was closed for like six months. It was supposed to be something like two weeks.”
But don’t feel too bad for Pashak. He still owns the Broken City building, manages his Vancouver bar the Biltmore Cabaret, and is busy signing acts for this summer’s Sled Island festival and solidifying its board.
He’s also scoping out opportunities in, of all places, Detroit.
“It’s a really interesting place,” he says. “There’s kind of a rebuilding movement down there. I think it’s kind of interesting to see a city that’s been so neglected or abandoned and then to figure out how to bring that city back.”
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