Uptown Comedy Corner closing, citing competition from Helium, City Winery

“It’s harder to get bigger name comics that sell tickets,” Sykes said.

Uptown Comedy Corner, which caters largely to African American audiences, is a stand-alone club with a capacity of about 225 seats, smaller than City Winery (300) and Helium (365).

Sykes also noticed more multi-comic tours booking dates at bigger venues like the Fox Theatre or State Farm Arena. “They can do one show instead of three or four in front of a bigger audience,” he said.

Credit: abbey.cutrer@ajc.com

Credit: abbey.cutrer@ajc.com

Gary Abdo, who ran Uptown Comedy Corner in the 1990s and 2000s, has managed Atlanta Comedy Theater in Norcross since 2015. It caters to a similar audience as Uptown with a capacity of 250. Abdo is well-connected, befriending the likes of Chris Tucker and Dave Chappelle, both of whom use his club to test out new material.

“It’s never been an easy business, but it’s gotten even tougher,” Abdo said. “The culture has changed, too. Nobody in Atlanta goes to a comedy club just to go to a comedy club anymore. Breweries now run one nighters that are cheap or free. Everybody else only comes to see a specific comic they already want to see.”

Years ago, comics would hit comedy clubs multiple times over a span of years to steadily build an audience or hope for a big break on TV. The comedy clubs often did heavy marketing. Now, comics are largely responsible for marketing themselves on social media.

“Even if you’ve been on the road five or 10 years, if you don’t have a million people in your social media, you aren’t driving anybody in,” Abdo said. “You can’t sell enough tickets.”

Uptown was a hot comedy club in Buckhead back in the 1990s, a place where comics like Tucker, Mo’Nique, Mike Epps and Earthquake regularly visited.

But when that spot shut down in 2003, Uptown reopened two years later on Marietta Street in an aging, worn-down building neighboring a strip club. In 2017, the landlord forced Uptown to close, replacing the space with mixed-use development.

Sykes, who has been active in management at Uptown for more than 20 years, found a new location in Hapeville that was previously a Castle seafood restaurant. It was bigger and cleaner with adequate kitchen space. They even got to keep two fancy thrones.

But they only got to stay three years. In May 2021, the landlord gave them 30 days notice to move out, Sykes said.

“We had to make tough decisions,” Sykes said. “We were just hitting our groove. The crowds were coming out. Then boom!”

In 2022, he found the current space at 1155 Virginia Ave. 2 miles away.

Sykes said he plans to take a break from comedy club ownership before he reassesses his options.