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Nestled in downtown Durham, North Carolina, and housed in a brick 1920s building, is a hot spot that nurtures community and music while defying convention. Having opened in January of this year, Missy Lane’s Assembly Room is fast becoming a popular Durham jazz destination.
The venue has already held 156 music shows featuring established and up-and-coming jazz artists and has welcomed over 8,000 guests through its doors. But before you can peg it as another space devoted solely to music, it transforms.
Missy Lane’s Assembly Room is a world-class jazz club, cocktail lounge, coffee bar and yoga studio all rolled into one amazing venue. “It’s an eclectic mix across a few concepts,” admits Dr. Cicely Mitchell, a jazz music lover and co-owner of Missy Lane’s Assembly Room, along with business partners Marcel Mercer and Russell Dudley.
“Because we’re in downtown Durham, and as with any great location, it’s [about] maximizing the space and location.”
Though less than a year old, the popular venue has been Mitchell’s dream for over a decade. “Thirteen years ago, I started a jazz nonprofit with a jazz trumpeter by the name of Al Strong…We would do jazz pop-ups at art galleries called Art of Cool,” recalls Mitchell, who built an ardent community of jazz fans via the pop-up concerts.
“Coming out of the pandemic, I had the opportunity to open up an actual home for [the music]…and this is where Missy Lane’s comes from,” she shares about finding the space within the historic Durham Sun building.
What’s in a Name?
As for the name Missy Lane’s Assembly Room, Mitchell tells us that it’s a riff on her childhood nickname. “My middle name is Elane. My grandfather, who is from Greenwood, Mississippi, used to call to me, when I was a young child, ‘Come here Miss Elane!’ But how it ran together [when he said it] sounded more like ‘Come here Missy Lane.’”
When it came to the assembly room part of the business moniker, there’s a story behind that, too, says the Dyersburg, Tennessee, native.
“We knew it would be more than just a music venue [for this business],” says Mitchell, who did her graduate work for her doctorate in public health, with an emphasis in biostatistics, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
“Assembly rooms and spaces like that used to be, way back in the day, where a gentleman could call on a lady,” she relates. “They would sit in the front room and socialize—and that’s what an assembly room is. It’s supposed to conjure up those nostalgic feelings of a social club. But it is also a place where people can gather and not only enjoy live music but cocktails, coffee and the like.”
Giving Off Rich Auntie Vibes
For Missy Lane’s Assembly Room’s space (3,000 square feet), Mitchell and her business partners organized the venue into two distinct areas: the Front Room, which takes on the dual role of coffee bar/cocktail lounge and holds about 45 guests seated; and the Show Room, where the stage for performances is located, which can accommodate an audience of about 107 seated.
Overall, the decor of Missy Lane’s Assembly Room can best be described as giving off “rich auntie” vibes with its velvet seating, round coffee tables, plush area rugs and a baby grand piano.
Mitchell agrees, “In the Front Room it feels very cozy and it’s supposed to feel like you’re in a sophisticated living room. The Show Room at the back is very intimate and set up as a proper jazz club with cocktail tables and a VIP area with a banquette that goes the length of the wall. Onstage is our other baby grand piano and drum kit.”
She continues, “One thing I learned as I was presenting those pop-up shows for Art of Cool was some people’s relationship to jazz is more social. They want it [jazz] to be a vibe in the background, like a soundtrack, to meet someone and then find a cozy corner to just talk—that’s more the Front Room. But if you actually want to be an audience member [for a jazz show] then you can go to the back Show Room and enjoy that give-and-take with the band.”
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From Coffee to Yoga
Open Tuesday to Saturday mornings and afternoons (8 a.m. to 4 p.m.), patrons will find Missy Lane’s Assembly Room serving brewed coffee, espresso and tea in the Front Room via co-owner Marcel Mercer’s Brooklyn Barista coffee program.
Guests can enjoy their lattes curled up on the velvet couches, sip their tea seated near big, bright windows or do their work thanks to a strong Wi-Fi signal, assures Mitchell.
If yoga is more your thing, Missy Lane’s got that, too. “It’s usually early afternoon, a few times a week,” Mitchell offers about the yoga classes organized by co-owner Russell Dudley, who hires instructors for the yoga sessions held in the Show Room area of the venue.
She adds, “It definitely mixes different communities, right? And that’s the whole point about the assembly room, it’s a community space where people can connect and enjoy each other’s company, coffee, tea or any social activity.”
Missy Lane’s Assembly Room Day-To-Night Shift
Once the sun sets, Missy Lane’s Assembly Room morphs into a multi-dimensional music venue and cocktail lounge with stage performances presented in the back Show Room.
“We usually have an early show and a late show: a 6:30 p.m. performance and then a 9:00 p.m. performance. It’s mostly on the weekends when we have our premium shows with touring artists that come and grace the stage. But we also do a lot of local programming where we’ll have open mics on Tuesdays and Old Havana Nights on Wednesdays with a Latin-jazz band and dancing. Then on Thursdays, in the Front Room, we’ll have the Jazz Jam Session,” details Mitchell, who notes the venue stays open until 10 p.m. on weekdays and midnight on Saturdays.
Creative Cocktails
With the transformation of the Front Room from a coffee bar to a cocktail lounge, patrons can order a number of creative cocktails crafted by bar manager Adrian Lindsay, a popular Durham bartender.
“The cocktail program is designed from his brilliance,” attests Michell. “He’ll change the menu out seasonally…But then he does have some classics that are always on our menu, and he’ll have what he calls ‘spin the classics,’ where he’ll take a classic cocktail, like an Old Fashioned, and he’ll remix it, do something interesting to it.”
Charcuterie and dip selections are currently available as light fare to accompany the cocktails, with plans for “heavier” hors d’oeuvre menu offerings, reveals Mitchell, in the works. Patrons grooving to the jazz performances in the Show Room can also enjoy cocktails with their music. “We put QR codes on the tables, and we have servers bring the drinks out,” details Mitchell.
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For The Love Of Jazz
As for the performances, Mitchell offers this, “We’re trying to present jazz in all its complexities…We like to carry the culture of Black American music but with improvisational elements. Therefore, one rule: You can’t get up on Missy Lane’s stage and do a ‘tracked’ performance. We always make sure that things are instrumental, improvisational, live.”
Though she admits to not playing any musical instruments, there’s no denying that Mitchell’s love for the art of jazz runs deep and is reflected in the multi-dimensional venue she and her business partners have created to bring communities together.
“From a community standpoint, Missy Lane’s Assembly Room is another place to come and gather and make memories. For the musician community, it’s a place to play and share your talent. And from a tourism standpoint, we are trying to build a reputation as being one of the premiere jazz clubs in the southeast and a tour stop for national, Grammy award winners and those kind of [jazz] players.”
For more information about Missy Lane’s Assembly Room menu offerings and upcoming shows, visit online and follow on Instagram.
