Ever wonder what happened to the Way Out Club that graced the 1920’s “Palms” building at 2525 South Jefferson in the Fox Park neighborhood?
Photo source: Mark Groth – St. Louis City Talk
The Way Out Club was a legendary and beloved St. Louis tavern and live venue built for people who preferred alternatives to the norm.
The place was kitschy and weird in all the best of ways. From live music, performance and strange movie showings, the place was a Fox Park institution from 1999 to 2021. The Way Out was established several years before moving to South Jefferson when they were at 3159 Cherokee Street (currently the STL Style House).
The Way Out Club was a great place to see touring bands as well as a place that promoted and booked local music acts. It seemed anyone could do a show at the Way Out, and we saw some memorable ones in our time.
Photo source: Mark Groth – St. Louis City Talk
Sherri Lucas and Bob Putnam, who were the brains, guts and soul behind the Way Out sold the venue in late 2022 and held an epic estate sale to move the weird collections they amassed into the loving hands of the next generation of St. Louisans. Shannon and I were fortunate enough to attend the estate sale with hundreds of others who showed up to reminisce and buy a few reminders of a special place in the weird St. Louis legacy.
The line to get into the sale snaked along Sidney Street all the way to Ohio Avenue. We bought some matches and an old Pepsi clock. Everything was selling and you can still see some of the relics in other operating businesses today.
Today, Jefferson Avenue between Sidney and Victor Streets continues to evolve in the wake of Way Out’s closure, one could surmise that it is more diverse and active than it has been in 50 years.
You have kombucha, pizza, Honduran coffee (some of the best in STL), St. Louis’ oldest tattoo parlor (Trader Bob’s) and other opportunities for future business.
This part of South Jefferson has a long history of interesting businesses that eventually evolved into an auto-centric area at the dawn of the automobile with several dealerships, repair shops and parts stores. By 1970, it was dying and ready for the long abandonment stretch.
Luckily the buildings are still there.
The 1920’s “Palms” building the Way Out occupied has seen recent evolution as well, and the story is worth telling.
Enter Colin Healy and Bradley Rohlf, two talented small business partners looking to make a difference in the St. Louis acting and theater community and non-pretentious local tavern scene.
Bradley left and Colin right
Living in the neighborhood, we’ve spent some time at the bar talking to Bradley on a couple occasions. His kind demeanor and interesting endeavors led us to want to learn more about Greenfinch, a neighborhood bar and 80-100 person performance venue.
We sat down with Colin and Bradley to document their story on how they ended up in Fox Park.
It all started in 2019 with Fly North Theatricals, a non-profit new theater production company established by Bradley and Colin. Their goal was to make theater accessible to all. From professional voice, acting, dance and singing lessons that were affordable and accessible to all St. Louisan’s. They initially set up shop in the Covenant Blu/Grand Center neighborhood.
With the success of Fly North Theatricals, they started dreaming bigger with hopes of opening their own venue.
The search for a building was on. They started looking for a St. Louis location in 2021 with the goal of opening 5 years down the road.
The timing was right, Colin moved to a nearby neighborhood back in 2022. He does a lot of walking as a self described “transit nerd”. Colin is only the second person I’ve met in St. Louis who doesn’t have a car.
This stretch of South Jefferson always caught his eye on walks, so when he and Bradley saw a For Sale sign go up, they scheduled a walkthrough. Initial impressions showed the space did not check off all their boxes; but, it checked an interesting combination of boxes for them to reframe their dream.
That’s when the concept of a theater space with an attached bar started to materialize. There was already a bar and separate stage in this property. The legacy of the Way Out Club led them to believe the space might just be perfect.
They started talking to family and friends for advice. Colin’s family has been in the bar business for ~100 years in Chicago and South Florida. Bradley knows the service industry from working in food service and hospitality. They have family and friends who are talented in general contracting and interior design.
The dream gained steam.
They made an offer on 2525 South Jefferson in 2022. The Way Out had a huge party in 2022.
Colin said: “We’re really happy to be in South City. We stumbled into it blindly and naively without a full grasp of what it would take to make everything happen.”
Bradley added: “If you were told all the details of every single problem you are going to have when opening a new business or starting a new project, you won’t try. We just jumped in.”
“Also, there’s the classic tragedy of two friends going into business, and shortly thereafter they are neither friends nor business partners anymore.”
Bradley and Colin initially met as colleagues first, and then fast friends. Their relationship is now based on working together and solving a lot of unknowns.
“Our friendship survived producing several musicals together, anything else will be easier” said Colin.
Bradley added, “That fact alone made me confident that we could work together on a business endeavor. Colin is the visionary, I’m the “no” man.”
“Being in theater production, there’s no deadline like a theater deadline. You cannot delay a timeline in theater. You are required to follow a deadline: people buy tickets, they show up at 8:00, the show must go on.”
Bob and Sheri made out well on their estate sale, but it took forever to close on the building. Bradley and Colin were happy to be taking the baton from Bob and Sherri. While they only met Bob once, he showed them around for over 90 minutes and regaled them with many stories to accompany their new space. Among the stories, they learned that the “Palms” used to be a bowling alley and tavern that a couple GIs returning from WWII won in a poker game.
The story tracks as there is a bowling counter, a bowling shoe rack with shoe sizes written in marker. There are bowling records noting high scores and other stuff still in the basement.
A respectful passing of the torch, indeed.
The bar and performance space was now in the hands of Bradley and Colin. Greenfinch was now a reality. Greenfinch was named after a Stephen Sondheim lyric from Sweeney Todd.
The whimsical new mural on the building exterior by local artist Cbabi has a nod to Bob Putnam and a few lyrics from Sondheim.
Now entering the problem solving phase ahead of opening, they had a lot of fixes to make the space for theater.
They explained: “Keeping the space ‘as is’ was not an option. We didn’t want it to be the Way Out Club – we’d be posers. But we wanted cheap drinks and good shows, just in our own image. I’d like to think we are carrying that legacy on. We’ve had old Way Out regulars who stop by, and we’re welcomed with enthusiasm. They feel comfortable in the space. The little touches from the past are there, but it’s definitely Greenfinch now.”
Colin’s added, “You can’t make a dive bar, you have to let it happen. You know, we put up this Christmas tree in December and we’re not taking it down.”
“You’ve got to let time and good times happen and, if you’re lucky, it may come out looking cool.”
They opened the bar six months after buying the place. That was priority #1 to keep them afloat. They sat down at bar for the first time. Their knees hit the bar back. They knew they had to fix it.
Together with a handyman-turned-friend who worked for a small stake in the company, they ripped up carpet, upcycled the wood floors, bought pocket doors at ReFab, refinished the bar and remaining booths. They worked with family on the interior design to make some cozy spaces with a lot of the old Way Out fixtures that were left behind.
They kept the palm tree etched glass mirrors behind the bar, a legacy from the old Palms tavern/bowling alley.
Even before the bar and performance stage area was finished, interest in the venue was building. The Saint Louis Story Tellers did an early show at Greenfinch. Counterpublic, a civic art exhibition, that takes place every three years booked the venue for their closing festivities and fittingly, a showing of an installment about the I-44 & Jefferson intersection. It was a hit and it felt good to prove they were onto something.
Trader Bob’s did a fundraiser for an animal rights foundation. Tattoo artists from all over the country used the sidewalk and hosted shows at Greenfinch. Clownvis Presley did a bingo night.
Finally, some old punk bands that played the Way Out club performed a final sendoff for the old stage.
Bradley and Colin said, “The place was a mess 90 minutes before opening. It was like a theater production in itself. Sound checking, moving people around, family and friends were there helping. Hanging things on the wall, dusting, sweeping, the room completely transformed in a day. The show must go on!”
“It needed to be a big night, and it was. We naively thought ‘It’s gonna be like this forever!’”
It was time to make the space Greenfinch’s once and for all.
The stage, the risers, the seating, the sound…they did it all themselves.
For the next 6 weeks, 14 hour days were spent making the new performance space.
The first theater show was Peter and the Starcatcher, a production with local high schoolers and professionals. It was a “give what you can” event intended for full audience inclusion.
The play was a Peter Pan retelling that asks you to use your imagination unconventionally. Colin and Bradley opened the show by asking the audience to use their imaginations to pretend they are NOT in an active construction site.
But, it worked.
Things started taking off. They described that part of the original dream of a bar, a venue to rent out and eventually produce their own shows was the diversity that they needed to stay afloat.
“This diverse concept has saved our butts several times. The relationship with both spaces is what works. It’s affordable, so anyone can make a show work if you sell a decent number of tickets. We’ve done high end drag and musical theater concerts to college kids just trying to do their own thing. It’s all the same price, so we keep it accessible to all.”
With a firm footing, they were able to focus on the bar and getting a space that can be sustainable on off-show nights.
Impressed, Shannon and I asked about a sea change moment, or what made them think it was all going to work?
Bradley: “We just kept showing up and doing things. The 6 month point is where we stopped having daily existential dread. Finances somewhat stabilized then.”
Colin: “It’s easy to fall into the fallacy that small business owners have a cache of money, and that’s not true. We have had plenty of days where the money on that day is needed to keep us solvent and all the bills paid up.”
Colin: “We’ve had to get creative. We did a customer fund raiser for our beer fridges. We needed $3,000. We’re running a non-profit, so asking for donations from people with money to forward art is in our wheelhouse. But asking customers for money for fridges is different. We had a “fridge-raiser” on Valentines Day, 2024 and invited regulars and friends of Greenfinch.”
They did various interesting things at the fundraiser as they reached the goals for the full amount needed. Some heads were shaved, some owners were tazed. The money was raised and then some. Ah community!
They said February, 2025 felt like a time where there was somewhat of a sea change in noticing more people coming in just for the bar or to hang out with friends, not for the programmed events.
We asked for examples.
“We did an Anheuser Busch product ban after AB announced they were pulling their sponsorship from the annual Pride festival. We had confidence to do a ban. Busch was our top selling beer at the time, but Stag and Pabst Blue Ribbon are cheap too. The ban went viral for a week. The mainstream local news showed up to cover the story.”
Was the ban a success? Did it accomplish what you wanted?
“Easily, yes. We need to take a stand to stay with our community. It wasn’t a morally difficult decision, all our friends are gay. We were met with overwhelming optimism from that decision. We posted online to explain why we did the ban. Momentum grew, other local businesses followed suit. It was a good outcome.
Bradley and Colin use Greenfinch to prop up community goals that they align with on the regular.
Political candidates that share their ethos have used the space for fundraisers.
The International Institute has recently lost a substantial amount of funding in these authoritarian times. Greenfinch hosted a “Rock for Immigrant Rights” weekend with punk rock shows to raise money for the International Institute.
Colin: “We don’t just have a theoretical stage, we have a literal stage that we want people to use. We’ve been able to use this space to let people elevate their own messages. Have at it, it’s yours. It’s for St. Louis and it’s for everybody.”
Bradley: “The idea of creating an affordable venue after being in the world of St. Louis theater was a key driver. Our theater community is one of the best kept secrets in the country and it is underserved. We have a lot of theater producers in town putting on shows, more per capita than most places. We knew there are people looking for venues. There is demand for a space like Greenfinch. Comedy, drag, burlesque, cabaret, puppet shows all have a need as well. Creative people with an idea and $100 in their pocket can make it happen here.”
So what’s next?
Bradley and Colin have moved their Fly North Theatricals nonprofit to a space they are renting just down South Jefferson in the Benton Park West neighborhood where they are continuing their mission to provide voice, acting and performance skills. They consolidated their offices, educational space, studio rooms and rehearsal hall in this new space.
Colin is directing a stage production of the popular movie Little Miss Sunshine. It will be an all ages, “give what you can” production. The cast is all local professionals including the Director of Education at the Black Rep, a Muny worker and even a local pediatrician who works in theater on the side.
This summer, they are producing “Madam”, a historical fiction based on Eliza Haycraft, a badass female St. Louis brothel owner who was one of the wealthiest locals in the late 1800s. She ended up buried in an unmarked grave in Bellefontaine Cemetery. Colin wrote the script and composed the music for this production.
Interested in upcoming events, programming and tickets?
Follow along @greenfinchstl on Instagram, Facebook of TikTok .
Tickets can be found at greenfinchstl.com/tickets
Bradley, Colin and David Lemon can also be heard on Overarching podcast “for people who like St. Louis and for people who want to like St. Louis”.
Check it out.
Thanks to our new neighbors and friends for opening a venue for us all to enjoy, one built in kindness and support for the arts community.
