No Encore: Nectar’s Closes for Good

Burlington nightclub Nectar’s will not reopen, according to sources within the company.

The popular downtown music venue had been a fixture on the local scene for nearly 50 years. In May, Nectar’s management announced the Main Street club would be closing for the summer following the Burlington Discover Jazz Festival. At the time, general manager Tyler Nettleton expressed hope that the venue would reopen in the fall and that the club was merely “pressing pause … as we navigate the immense challenges facing downtown Burlington and the music scene in general.”

But attempts to broker a new deal with the building’s landlord, Joe Handy, were unsuccessful, and the club’s doors were chained and padlocked for a few days last week. Handy did not respond to requests for comment.

The chains are gone, but so is the club. Nettleton and other former employees have begun the process of clearing out sound and lighting equipment and decades worth of memorabilia.

Nectar Rorris opened Nectar’s in 1975. The club played host to generations of Burlington bands, as well as touring artists, both in the downstairs club and its upstairs sister venue, Club Metronome — later known as the Lounge at Nectar’s.

Nectar’s is best known for its association with jam band titans Phish, who honed their chops playing there in the mid-to-late 1980s. The band named its third studio album A Picture of Nectar in tribute to Rorris in 1992.

Rorris sold Nectar’s in 2003 and the venue changed hands a few times before Ed Maier and a silent partner took it over in 2022. Maier has not been involved with the club since January of this year.

In May, Nettleton outlined challenges Nectar’s has faced since the purchase, from changes in the live music industry post-pandemic to the difficulties of running a business during Burlington’s Great Streets BTV initiative. That construction project has caused numerous street closings in the past year, including a lengthy period when Main Street was barricaded by fencing and cones.

“The truth is, we’ve been hit hard,” Nettleton and former booking agent Ryan Clausen wrote in a May press release. “The Main Street Construction Project has taken a heavier toll than we anticipated. And the cultural heartbeat that once defined downtown Burlington has grown faint. Fewer people are walking these streets. The energy has shifted. And for a small, independent venue like ours, that change cuts deep.”

While Nectar’s won’t reopen in its original location, sources with the club said there are ongoing conversations about the future of the Nectar’s brand and its legacy, ranging from finding a new venue to staging shows at other clubs under the Nectar’s Presents name.

Despite the uncertainty surrounding its future, the nightclub still won two Seven Daysies readers’ choice awards this year:  best small live music hotspot (Nectar’s) and best place to dance (the Lounge at Nectar’s).