A new concert hall and coffeehouse is coming to downtown D.C., but under a familiar name: Penn Social.

After closing in November 2020 due to the pandemic, the downtown sports bar’s owners landed a $2.8 million federal grant in August that allowed them to reopen and retool. The grant paid for a high-quality sound system to create a performance venue on Penn Social’s lower level, add a podcast studio, and turn part of the first floor into a coffeeshop.

Months later, those plans are now coming to fruition with the new spaces opening Tuesday and local go-go favorite the Chuck Brown Band slated to play opening night. The coffeeshop, Little Penn, will serve Compass Coffee, Astro Donuts, bagels and sandwiches starting at 8 a.m., along with dinner-friendly options by night, inside and also on a 60-seat outdoor patio on Eighth Street NW.

The 80-seat capacity first floor can also host live jazz and blues shows, and events like trivia nights, according to Geoff Dawson, who, with his business partner Peter Bayne, runs Tin Shop — the group behind D.C. bars including Penn Social, Franklin Hall, TallBoy, and Church Hall.

The group also plans to open Penn Pod, a studio where podcasters can record episodes and host live events. The studio will take up a corner on the first floor, with a soundproof window facing E Street NW.

The new Penn Social will feature significantly more live music. Tim Blanchard, who’s booked shows for Howard Theatre, among other local venues, will book acts for both the first floor and the 500-capacity concert space on the lower level. The concert hall stage is elevated and management hopes the new sound system will help attract national acts. A handful of shows are already booked for the summer, including D.C.-based go-go band Black Alley.

Blanchard says he hopes musicians and podcasters take full advantage of all three spaces.

“There’s been a void. You know, COVID closed quite a few places — Rock & Roll Hotel, U Street Music Hall, Gypsy Sally’s — those were staples in the D.C. music scene,” Blanchard says. “Hopefully we can kind of revive that.”

The subterranean event space will also come with Ketra lighting to allow Tin Shop to rent out the space for different types of events. Dawson imagines groups hosting morning meditation sessions and businesses organizing team-building events down there. A few Skee Ball and Pop-a-Shot machines, vestiges of the precursor Penn Social, will still line the walls.

This vision for a revitalized downtown spot seemed impossible to pull off two years ago.

“We’d been brought to our knees by the pandemic,” Dawson told DCist at Penn Social on a recent morning, as construction workers carried in wood beams and lighting equipment behind him. “It really was going to take us out. In fact, I was writing the letter to our investors announcing that we were going to close, and that next morning, I received a notice by email that we had received a relief grant.”

That multimillion-dollar boost from the federal government’s Restaurant Revitalization Fund gave the Dawson and Bayne a chance to reopen Penn Social last August. It also gave them freedom to think about what kind of future they wanted for the two-story, 10,000-square-foot venue.

“Our payback for receiving that grant is to make something that’s long lasting and amazing for the city,” Dawson says.

The Penn Social owners recently signed a new lease on the space at 801 E St. NW that runs through 2023, but Dawson says his aspirations are now bigger than just staying open. He plans to partner with Georgetown’s Pivot Program, which helps returning citizens find employment opportunities.

“I have bars downtown — I think this has way more relevance and importance in doing something good for the city,” he says. “And honestly, this is a lot more fun and challenging and interesting.”