Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

The Queen in Wilmington celebrates its 5th anniversary

Delaware Public Media

Wilmington’s World Café Live at The Queen turns five years old Friday.

When the live entertainment venue and restaurant opened it doors back in 2011, it was hailed as a “game changer” in the effort to revive lower Market Street.  Supporters hoped giving new life to the vaudeville house-turned-movie theater that had stood vacant since 1959 would draw people and other businesses to the area.

World Café Live founder and president Hal Real says in its first half decade The Queen has done its part to spark a Market Street renaissance,  drawing over a half million people to nearly 2,000 shows and over 950 events.  

But he admits the venue and the city remain works in progress.

“I think we’re very linked at the hip to Wilmington hitting the tipping point.  We will do so together in the next five years.  We’re both making great progress, but we still have a little ways to go," said Real. "I think Wilmington looks very different now physically and feels different spiritually than it did 5 years ago.  I think will be very much changed, even more so, five years from now."

But for now, it's about celebrating The Queen's first five years, something later the venue is doing not with a big name concert – but a day full of free music.

“The tendency would be to think who can we have for a really big show and sell a lot of tickets – and we decided, you know, that’s really not what this fifth anniversary is about.  What we want is our fans, our supporters, our friends, our neighbors to come together and have a chance whenever they can over a 12 hour period to just come in and join us and have some fun.”

The daylong celebration kicks off with a Ben Harper concert at noon.  Tickets for that are gone, but other performances on The Queen's upstairs and downstairs stages are open to all from 2 pm to midnight.

Tom Byrne has been a fixture covering news in Delaware for three decades. He joined Delaware Public Media in 2010 as our first news director and has guided the news team ever since. When he's not covering the news, he can be found reading history or pursuing his love of all things athletic.