The Wheel Club: New pastures for NDG's country music stomping grounds

A veterans’ social club turned live music venue, honouring country music history with a longstanding tradition as it looks to new endeavours.

Jenny Greenberg

Jenny Greenberg

5 septembre 2024- Read time: 8 min
The Wheel Club: New pastures for NDG's country music stomping groundsPhotograph: Chris MacArthur / @chrismacarthur

The Wheel Club is both a destination and hidden gem you don’t want to miss, but easily can. Its subterranean location sits between a karate studio, daycare, and office building in NDG, marked by a backlit sign hugging its dusty brick exterior: 'Wheel Club La Roue'.

“Honestly, I’ve lived in NDG since 2005, and I had gone up and down Cavendish hundreds of times without noticing the club,” admits the club’s director Clifford ‘Cliff’ Schwartz. He loves how much this adds to the charm, as though it were a scandalous secret.

The Wheel Club's director, Clifford ‘Cliff’ Schwartz. | Photograph: Adam Lepp / @adam_lepp
Photograph: Chris MacArthur / @chrismacarthur

It’s special to be in the know. I’d hear stories about the Wheel Club from both sixty-year-old pubgoers in the area and my thirty-year-old friends from music school. Once I walked into its dark basement illuminated by glowing red and green sconces and strings of lights, I quickly understood that these were more than stories.

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