Sweetwater Saloon was a bar and music venue located at 153 Throckmorton Avenue Mill Valley, California, with a 30-year history of live musical performances by the likes of Bonnie Raitt, Elvis Costello, Jerry Garcia, The String Cheese Incident, John Lee Hooker and Carlos Santana. There were typically at least 4 to 5 musical acts booked per week making it a popular local hangout.
- Venue
- Sweetwater Saloon
- Town
- California, US
Sweetwater Saloon was a bar and music venue located at 153 Throckmorton Avenue Mill Valley, California, with a 30-year history of live musical performances by the likes of Bonnie Raitt, Elvis Costello, Jerry Garcia, The String Cheese Incident, John Lee Hooker and Carlos Santana. There were typically at least 4 to 5 musical acts booked per week making it a popular local hangout. Sweetwater Saloon also featured an open mike night on Mondays that occasionally featured surprise performances by well-known artists such as Gregg Allman, Train and others. Village Music, a nationally recognized independent record store also in Mill Valley held twice-yearly parties at Sweetwater by well-known musicians who were also Village Music store customers. A documentary film about Village Music, Sweetwater and the music community in Mill Valley,Village Music: Last of the Great Record Stores was released in 2012. After closing in 2007 it was reopened as Sweetwater Music Hall in 2012 by Bob Weir and his partners a few blocks away from its original location Jeanie Patterson and her then-husband, Jay took over the Sweetwater Saloon in 1979. Jeanie Patterson retired as the owner on December 31, 1998, by selling it to Becky and Thomas J. Steere, an Autodesk project director. This original Sweetwater closed in 2007. In January, 2012 it was relocated to the Masonic Lodge across from Mill Valley’s City Hall. “For years, Sweetwater was the place many of us local and visiting musicians headed to when we were looking to play for fun, Well, our clubhouse is back - and it belongs to all of us. Woo-hoo - Mill Valley finally has its playpen back!”” said former Grateful Dead guitarist Bob Weir, one of the investors in the new state-of-the-art venue at 19 Corte Madera Ave. Village Music: Last of the Great Record Stores, a documentary film by Gillian Grisman and Monroe Grisman (daughter and son of San Francisco Bay Area musician David Grisman) debuted at the Mill Valley Film Festival in October 2012. Joh