South Pas Gets a Proper Concert Venue

First a restaurant in La Cañada that’s worth traveling to, now a legit music venue in South Pasadena? Welcome to the upside down.

I’m a South Pasadena lifer with nothing but affection for the place, largely because it fits my lifestyle as a Geriatric Youth, someone who values a farmers’ market and a vintage shop and community and yoga and a reasonable bedtime. But there are certain ways in which one would never have described South Pas before, chief among them “raucous” and “hip.”

It’s been cool because it doesn’t care about cool, which is really a hallmark of desirability for me personally. And yet here we are, standing in front of the library, looking at a construction site that will soon be home to Villa’s Tacos, The Boy and The Bear, District Brewing Co, and Sid the Cat, an independent venue with a full bar and a max capacity of 500 people.

Previously the neighborhood’s music venues were limited to the dirt mound at the Farmers Market, the back of Griffins of Kinsale, school auditoriums (which this…used to be,) and whatever stoplight the Pasadena Piper was paused at (IYKYK.)

Sid the Cat is about a decade deep into promoting shows in various locations across the city, but the forthcoming South Pas location will be its first brick and mortar. Welcome to the neighborhood, Sid- we’re so happy to see you finally settle down.