Venue: Pete's Candy Store
Town: New York, US

Pete's Candy Store is a music venue and bar located at 709 Lorimer Street in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York City. Opened on December 1, 1999, it is considered Williamsburg's original nightly live music venue and has hosted early performances by artists who later achieved mainstream success, including Norah Jones, Vampire Weekend, Sharon Van Etten, Sufjan Stevens, and Devendra Banhart. The storefront at 709 Lorimer Street has been in continuous operation since the 1920s. It was originally a general store run by a family known locally as "Funzi's." By the 1970s, ownership passed to Pete Caruso, who gave the establishment its current name. Under Caruso, the space functioned as a diner and neighborhood gathering spot, with poker tables in the back room that would later become the performance space. In 1999, Andy McDowell, a former film and television set designer, leased the storefront from building owner Jerry Trotta. McDowell, who had moved to Williamsburg in 1990, was drawn to the location's relative isolation at the time, describing the area between Frost and Richardson Streets as "like the Bermuda Triangle" where few people walked. McDowell opened Pete's Candy Store on December 1, 1999, with co-founder Juliana Nash serving as general manager and music booker. British singer Beth Orton performed the venue's first show before the back room was even fully completed. Nash established many of the venue's early residencies, booking acts including the Howard Fishman Quartet, Reverend Vince Anderson and his Love Choir, and Greg Garing. The venue quickly became a center of the emerging Williamsburg music scene. The intimate back room, which reviewers have compared to a train car, became known for hosting artists before they achieved wider recognition. Norah Jones performed there in the early 2000s, and bands including Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Dirty Projectors, The Walkmen, and Joanna Newsom played the venue in their early years. In 2019, British pop si