Nighttown

so on Nighttown's stage: folk, world and classical music. Check us out at http://www.nighttowncleveland.com

READ MORE: At any given time at Nighttown, you'll find corporate titans, doctors from The Cleveland Clinic and University Hospital, Cleveland Orchestra members in tuxedos seated next to the patrons they just entertained, as well as college students from Case, neighbors just stopping in for a quick bite, lovers on dates, pre and post-theatergoers, people from all over the world traveling on U.S. State Department junkets and writers who are terribly flattered when someone mentions the fact their face is on a plaque in the Cleveland Journalism Hall of Fame (which just happens to be located at Nighttown). This discerning, eclectic mix of people eat from a menu regarded by most as remarkably consistent and served by a wait staff who remembers many of their names (or tries to, at least) at this white tablecloth venue that first opened its doors 45 years ago. But this group of people are best fed by the entertainment provided seven nights a week from a tiny stage in a crowded room evoking the small stages usually seen in the old black and white films shot in Manhattan. But Nighttown isn't a re-creation or faux anything. Nighttown is the real deal. It's a real joint where just in the last 18 months or so, if you were lucky enough to be there, you could have sat in front of the Count Basie Orchestra so close that the trombone would've bopped you in the nose. Or maybe you saw Freddy Cole, Jane Monheit, John Pizzarelli, Liz Callaway, Basia (yes, THE Basia), Wynton Marsalis, the Four Freshmen, the New York Voices, Kurt Elling, the Gorditas Quarter (with three members from The Cleveland Orchestra), Eliane Elias and scores of others look you right in the eye as they sang from just a few feet away.