Six years after opening its doors in Georgetown, music venue Gypsy Sally’s is closing. According to a post on the venue’s Facebook page on Friday, the building that houses the venue beneath the Whitehurst Freeway has been sold, and is being converted into condominiums.

“We are privileged that Gypsy Sally’s was your go-to-place for music, friendship, and gathering,” reads the post, signed by co-owners David and Karen Ensor. “Thank you for giving us this chance of a lifetime and for walking on this journey with us.” They say the space will have its final load-out on January 5. John Kadlecik, a local guitarist who formerly played with original members of the Grateful Dead, will be hosting the to-be-announced closing show.

The Ensors opened Gypsy Sally’s in 2013, in when Georgetown was far from its live music heyday. The venue came as the music scene was shifting east: venues like the 9:30 Club and Black Cat had dominated the U Street Corridor and Shaw for decades. “When we got this place, the nostalgia certainly kicked in,” David Ensor, a musician himself, told DCist in 2017. “Georgetown used to be cool with great live music venues like The Bayou and The Cellar Door.”

Gypsy Sally’s has earned a reputation for hosting rootsy jam bands, occasionally also expanding into reggae, New Orleans brass, and even 90s throwbacks like White Ford Bronco. It also became the unofficial home of D.C.’s Deadheads, especially after Kadlecik played six sold-out shows at Gypsy Sally’s a year after it opened. In the backroom Vinyl Lounge, frontman Jerry Garcia stars in a photo exhibit.

Despite the praise the venue earned for fostering a spirit of community—with regular open-mic nights and free shows, and a residency from local musician Gordon Sterling, where audience members could drop their name in a bucket to rock out with musicians onstage—David Ensor seemed to have humble ambitions for Gypsy Sally’s back in 2017. “It’s more important for us to be accepted by the bands and customers we want. The scene will take care of itself,” he said.

Until the venue closes, the couple writes that they’re planning “a full calendar of great music.”

Previously:
Gypsy Sally’s Brings The Groove Back To Georgetown