Lola’s Hi/Lo Dining Room and Cocktail Lounge opens today

The Madison spot is inspired by an up-north Wisconsin tavern and Japanese jazz kissa

by

The era of 1960s jazz, soul and funk reigns at a new lounge on Madison’s north side. Lola’s Hi/Lo Dining Room and Cocktail Lounge, the creation of former FPC Live president Matt Gerding; his spouse, Ancora Cafe owner Tori Gerding; and Cadre chef and owner Evan Dannells, will have its grand opening Nov. 7, opening at 4 p.m.

Matt Gerding notes his co-owners’ depth of experience in an interview with Isthmus, including his wife’s sharp sense of interior design and marketing instinct, and Dannells’ restaurant background. “Evan is an incredible chef and has worked in a lot of different food environments between L’Etoile, Lucille and now Cadre.” He says Dannells was particularly interested in “creating a food menu that would be a little more approachable than what he is able to do at Cadre.”

The trio’s inspiration started with the music and “having really approachable, down-to-earth, no-frills food and cocktails,” says Gerding. But more tangibly, the progenitor of Lola’s is a place called Lola’s Tomcat Lounge in Saint Nazianz, Wisconsin. The Gerdings visit often as it is close to Tori’s hometown and they’ve always admired its charismatic owner, Lola Otto. That regard was so high that the new lounge’s tagline, “she’s a vibe,” refers to Otto although the owners want it to carry over into the overall look and feel of the space.

They even brought Otto down from Saint Nazianz for the soft opening of the new lounge, “in a limo with a bunch of her family,” says Gerding. They walked her into the space for the first time “on a red carpet.”

While the small-town bar serves as an anchor point for the Madison lounge, the idea behind Lola’s is also rooted in a now global concept known as jazz kissa.

“Jazz kissa means ‘jazz café’ in Japanese,” says Gerding. “It’s a concept that’s been around for years and years in Tokyo. There’s a lot of what are called ‘listening rooms’ where people can sit and consume an entire jazz album on vinyl on high fidelity sound systems and while sipping nice cocktails.”

Lola’s Hi/Lo Lounge has many pieces that embody the jazz kissa concept. Behind the bar, beyond the Japanese Suntory whisky tap pull, sit a set of high-fidelity speakers, a tube amplifier (often regarded by music enthusiasts for the warm sound it produces), and row upon row of hand-picked records. Off to the side of the bar, a DJ booth with two turntables and a backlit wall of vinyl records sets the stage for the curated playlist of classic artists like John Coltrane and Ella Fitzgerald. The dining room has intimate seating arrangements and a wall of, you guessed it, vinyl classics.

“Our vinyl collection will be a constant work in progress, but right out of the gate we wanted to build a collection that has a lot of the classics from the era of the ‘60s,” says Gerding. “We’ll touch on anything from classic soul like Stevie Wonder to Otis Redding and jazz that was popular in that era like Miles Davis and Billie Holiday.” 

Gerding alludes to some DJ events on the horizon and opportunities for live jazz performances, but the main focal point of the lounge to start will be the wide array of vinyl classics that will be spinning.

“We’ll start letting our hair down a little over time where we have a little disco and boogie vibes on a Saturday night and dabble into some down-tempo hip-hop,” Gerding says. “But for the most part, certainly during happy hour and dinner service, people can expect to hear music from the classic era of jazz, soul and funk.”

The menu of elevated tavern food, spearheaded by Dannells, includes items such as cracker crust pizza, noodle dishes, dumplings (which Gerding mentions are a “passion” of Dannells’), burgers and chili dogs.

“The goal is for people to know no matter when they show up at Lola’s it’s going to be an incredible experience with good music, food and cocktails, and that they’re going to get a really warm Midwestern hospitality approach to service,” says Gerding.

Lola’s is located at 617 N. Sherman Ave. in the Lakewood Plaza Shopping Center in the space that was formerly Jacobson Brothers Meats & Deli, near one of Tori Gerding’s Ancora locations. Regular hours will be 4 p.m.-midnight Sunday-Thursday and 4 p.m.-1 a.m. Friday and Saturday.