Liverpool city centre's Soultrain bar, which recently announced it was "closed for good" after difficulties with customer numbers, will return "bigger and better" at a new location on Mathew Street. The over-25s venue, previously on Seel Street, confirmed the move in a Facebook update on October 8.
Move to Mathew Street
Soultrain has been a popular destination for older partygoers seeking throwback music in a more mature setting. The nightclub has relocated within the Seel Street area several times over the years, with its most recent site next to Brooklyn Mixer.
Founder David Thomas announced the closure on October 4, citing difficulties separating the venue's clientele. He said: "Our new Soultrain bar had to share a toilet with the bar upstairs, so there is no separation of Soultrain and the upstairs bar so anybody can go where they want."
Clientele clash
Thomas explained that the upstairs bar catered to 18-year-olds and upwards, with heavier music that did not suit Soultrain's audience. He said: "What happened was we had kids coming down to our Soultrain club throughout the night, they (were) probably thinking it was just another room."
He added: "We built our reputation on over-25s and great old school music. If we had stayed in that club within a few months, our Soultrain reputation, which we have been building for over seven years, would have been wiped out, and it's not the club's fault, it's just the layout wasn't right for us."
New opening date
Thomas told the ECHO that nobody could have predicted the problem and that there was no bad blood between either venues or owners. He said: "None of us knew this would happen. It's a shame because it was a really exciting moment. We had loads of support but these problems just happen sometimes."
The problems began on Soultrain's opening night last week, and Thomas asked about having a men's toilet placed downstairs to separate the over-25s bar from the rest of the venue. He said: "We couldn't find a solution and it got worse, we had kids coming in, we had our audience going up to the other upstairs bar and it was just not working."
The Facebook update announced: "BREAKIN NEWS OUR NEW SITE FOR THE NEW SOULTRAIN BAR IS ON THE WORLD FAMOUS MATHEW STREET. WE HAVE WORK TO DO SO WE OPEN ON SATURDAY 7TH NOVEMBER…AND THEN WE ARE OPEN EVERY SATURDAY FROM 8PM AS USUAL..MORE INFO AND LIVE VIDEOS TO FOLLOW" [sic].
The post added: "We want to thank all the other bars and club who offered their venue, so we want to show our appreciation, so we will be doing Soultrain pop up parties on a Friday, every Friday...so if anybody out there in the city wants Soultrain to do a Friday just message and we sort out the agreements with an we will do it." [sic]
