Providence Steam Engine Boiler House

About this Property

#Redevelopment

Partners in the Met Cafe, Tom Bates and Josh Miller, had the ambition to open another hangout. The Providence harbor and waterfront in the late 1970s and early 1980s was largely industrial, full of shipping companies and supporting businesses. It was not a popular destination. They partnered with Johanne Killeen and George Germon who opened Al Forno only a few years earlier in 1980 on Steeple Street. They would move the restaurant in 1989 to the waterfront as well.¹

A few novel ideas like a floating restaurant made a splash but were short lived. The Hot Club was a risk, and one which paid off greatly. The small bar expanded quickly and became a beloved night spot, bringing citizens closer to the water in heart and mind.

The Hot Club served it first drink on April 15, 1983. The bar was one tiny room in the former boiler house. Tom and Josh must have had great intuition or a fantastic physic reader who knew that soon after, the neighboring mill would be one of the first mill conversions to residential. A four-day waterfront festival in 1985 would bring 75,000 people down to India Point.² The Hot Club’s footprint would continue to expand to three bar stations (two inside and one outside) and a long deck along the harbor.

Very quickly, this section of the waterfront went from desolate industrial wasteland to a thriving, populated party atmosphere. The Hot Club was an early pioneer in this transformation, and we are happy to see it going strong. After all, sometimes a drink along the water on a summer night across from the blinking smokestack lights just can’t be beat. Its a central piece of Providence culture.

#Current Events

The Hot Club is open for business year-round with indoor and outdoor bars and food options.

#History

The original building’s history is tied to the Providence Steam Engine building across the street. This small, three bay by one bay one-story building with a significant smokestack provided heat to the factory next door — hence the derivative name, “The Hot Club.”

The building did get an individual mention in the College Hill survey, though:

From the College Hill Historic District nomination form, Edward F. Sanderson & Keith N. Morgan, January 1976

575 — Building (by 1926): 1-story, brick, shed-roof building, three bays wide with a brick chimney stack. Plain utilitarian building with a 1-story brick addition and glazed porches added during a 1983 conversion into a club.

Maps

• 1918 L.J. Richards Insurance Map, Plate 18 — Providence Engineering Works is located in the center of the left third of the map. To the left along the water is the Hartford and New York Transportation Company and below that is a small wooden (yellow) structure where the brick boiler room will later occupy.
• 1920–1921 Sanborn Insurance map, Volume 2, Plate 2 (page 6) — Providence Engineering Corporation is prominent in the lower half of the map as a collection of brick and stone structures. Across South Water Street to the west is the Bay State Transportation Company, a long wooden structure along the harbor. To the south of that structure is a small, brick structure with a black circle indicating a chimney oriented north south to the compass while other buildings follow the street pattern.
• 1920–1951 Sanborn Insurance map, Volume 2, Plate 2 (page 8) — Same as the 1920 map except the waterfront north of boiler house is now empty. The main complex has been renamed the Providence Engineering Works, Inc.
• 1920–1955 Sanborn Insurance map, Volume 2, Plate 2 (page 7) — Same as the 1951 map.

#In the News

Yupping it up Chic to chic, The Hot Club is a cool place

by Russell Garland
Providence Journal | October 27, 1985 (abridged)

Three years ago, the Hot Club was a decrepit brick shack perched beside the Providence River downwind of a fish company.

If a building ever lacked potential, that was it.

On warm nights it’s been hard to get in the place, even though owners have added a 164-foot waterside deck with an outdoor bar. Fast motorboats tie up alongside as bar patrons in cotton sweaters admire the arch-windowed power plant across the river and the lighted city skyline.

It’s definitely not Newport, but rather a kind of urban waterfront chic that has made the Hot Club — so named because it was once a factory boiler house — the hottest new club in the city.

Tom Bates says he never planned it that way.

“My concept was to have a nice little bar by the waterfront,” he said with a sly smile. “I think I failed.”

BATES’ HUGE success with what looked like a sure loss should come as no great surprise. Nearly 10 years ago, he bought a now legendary bar under an interstate highway: the Met Cafe.

The Met, scheduled to close this week, can still draw a crowd, but its rocking bands and free spirited atmosphere are from a different world than the Hot Club, City Lights and Sh-Booms, the places usually mentioned as the city’s most popular clubs. […]

About all the Hot Club has in common with the Met besides owners Tom Bates and Josh Miller is the ubiquitous presence of Rolling Rock beer in long neck bottles. Bates and Miller, a former partner in the Met, spent two years looking for a new bar site before they found what they wanted.

“We just thought the trend of the city was moving in this direction,” said Bates, a soft-spoken man with streaks of gray in his beard. “There was no Corliss Landing (aka the Providence Steam Engine complex), there was no waterfront festival. We just took a chance.”

Bates, Miller and their partners, George Germon and Johanne Killeen, owners of Providence’s Al Forno restaurant, opened the Hot Club on April 15, 1983. The bar was one tiny room, smaller than the Met.

Bates’ “chance” just kept expanding, rolling on the same upscale wave that turned the factory the Hot Club used to heat into Corliss Landing condos. Hot Clubers’ cars crowd streets near the Fox Point hurricane barrier. On Friday afternoons, the cocktail hour crowd on the Hot Club deck is “awesome,” said City Lights’ Gootkind, his voice filled with admiration.

“I think the attraction is the water,” Bates said. “Water does what an open fire does for people. Even if it’s the Providence River.” […]

“I think the bars that attract people and make sense to me,” he said, “are places where people come in and just be themselves.”

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GARLAND, RUSSELL. “Yupping it up Chic to chic, The Hot Club is a cool place.” Providence Journal (RI), ALL ed., sec. ACCENT, 27 Oct. 1985, pp. E-04. NewsBank: America’s News, infoweb.newsbank.com/apps/news/document-view?p=NewsBank&docref=news/1525BEA415B4C728. Accessed 8 Jan. 2022.

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Bar wants an addition

by Journal Staff
Providence Journal | November 9, 1983

The state Coastal Resources Management Council yesterday invited public comment on an application by the Hot Club, 575-579 South Water St., for a permit to build a one-story addition overlooking the Providence River above the Fox Point Hurricane Barrier. Nov. 30 is the deadline for comment. Details may be obtained from the council, 60 Davis St.

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“Bar wants an addition.” Providence Journal (RI), CITY ed., sec. NEWS, 9 Nov. 1983, pp. C-03. NewsBank: America’s News, infoweb.newsbank.com/apps/news/document-view?p=NewsBank&docref=news/1525C24743210A68. Accessed 8 Jan. 2022.

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Not all the ‘light’ beers are low in calories

by Journal Staff
Providence Journal | August 31, 1983 (abridged)

If you’re a devotee of spicy foods and wood-fire cooking, there are two spots that must be on your list: The Hot Club and Wes’ Rib House.

The Hot Club, a tiny bar established in what used to be a boiler room, serves the hottest martinis in town. It’s the Cajun martini: jalapeno peppers and the gin they’ve been marinated in. The martini is garnished with a strip of hot pepper.

Owners Johanne Killeen and George Germon, who also own Alforno restaurant, first tasted the Cajun martini at K-Paul’s Louisana Kitchen in New Orleans. The Hot Club has a limited menu of snack food, such as chili dogs and grilled chicken kebabs, cooked over a wood fire. It’s on the water, near R.I. Fish, at 575 S. Water St., Providence, just off Wickenden Street.

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“Not all the ‘light’ beers are low in calories.” Providence Journal (RI), ALL ed., sec. FOOD, 31 Aug. 1983, pp. F-14. NewsBank: America’s News, infoweb.newsbank.com/apps/news/document-view?p=NewsBank&docref=news/1525C28F77C95770. Accessed 8 Jan. 2022.