It has a bar, but it isn’t a bar. It began as a vintage store and became the Galactic Theatre LLC “by accident and on purpose at the same time.” It’s a time machine, and a force for keeping Warren “weird.”
Those are a few of the ways owner David Podsnap describes the Galactic Theatre, a live music and stand-up comedy venue and micro-movie theater.
“We try to go against the grain as much as possible, even though we’re not recreating the wheel,” Podsnap said of the establishment, located at 440 Main St. in Warren.
In part, that means limiting drink selections to craft beers and cocktails, hosting original music only and screening a variety of films from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Galactic has morphed considerably from its origins about five years ago, Podsnap says, as has Warren.
The venue began as Podsnappery, a vintage store that Podsnap ran at a different location on Main Street. The store grew in scope, with Podsnap adding acoustic performances, sectioning off a small, seated theater area for public domain films, and later renaming the space the Flashback Vintage Emporium.
But at the time, Main Street was a quieter place, beset by vacant storefronts, and the vintage store wasn’t turning a profit.
Struggling to stay afloat and dismayed by the state of downtown Warren, Podsnap applied for a beer and liquor license and handed out pocket-sized posters with recommendations of where else customers could shop and eat in Warren.
“We built this from zero, literally,” Podsnap said of Galactic. “Bad credit and $100.”
The venue and bar expansion turned the tide quickly.
“Basically, after a month or two of that, I could not run a vintage store,” Podsnap said. “I had a busy music venue all the sudden.”
The venue now hosts a variety of folk and rockabilly-style music performances, with Podsnap often performing under his stage name, Sasquatch, as well as stand-up comedy. Next door, his former vintage store exists under different ownership as Space Cadets Vintage.
Now, Podsnap says, he has “good credit and a couple hundred dollars,” and his business belongs to a much livelier downtown district.
But it hasn’t all been smooth sailing since then. Galactic went through several iterations throughout the pandemic, with bars shut down for nearly a year under COVID-19 lockdown measures. The venue weathered this closure by creating an evolving menu of food options, starting with to-go ice cream and later, a flatbread menu.
This improvised solution wasn’t sustainable, Podsnap said, and the venue has tossed all food options aside from grilled cheeses, with the occasional hot dog or pretzels, and a soon-to-be-gone ice cream machine used to make liquor-infused milkshakes.
But it’s been rewarding to see new life on Main Street, Podsnap says, and to feel that Galactic played a role in this shift.
As Main Street grows, Podsnap also wants to “Keep Warren Weird,” as a sign to the upper right of Galactic’s stage reads. For a time, Podsnap also sold the print on T-shirts, having borrowed the slogan from Austin, Texas.
“I love this town Warren, and I don’t want it to turn into what Austin was becoming, which is Fortune 500, big stores moving in,” Podsnap said. It means “keep Warren eclectic, keep Warren a community.”
OWNER: David Podsnap
TYPE OF BUSINESS: Performance venue and micro-movie theater
LOCATION: 440 Main St., Warren
EMPLOYEES: Two
YEAR FOUNDED: 2017
ANNUAL SALES: WND