Author: Timothy Boone
November 15, 2018
Red Stick Social, a community gathering space that will feature a bowling alley, live music venue, restaurant and bar, is set to open Feb. 1 at the old Entergy site on Government Street.
The managers of the facility gave the press and community leaders a tour of the nearly 30,000-square-foot facility Thursday. Dozens of onlookers walked through the brick building, while workers painted and installed bowling lanes.
“This is the coolest building in Baton Rouge,” said Akheil Shah, an architect and project manager for DNA Workshop. Dyke Nelson, who founded DNA Workshop, is one of the developers of the Electric Depot, which will be anchored by Red Stick Social.
The 103-year-old building that will be home for Red Stick Social had been the Baton Rouge Electric Company power plant. Shah said some of the original touches, such as the overhead 20-ton gantry crane, will remain in the building as conversation pieces.
“We were able to repurpose a lot of things,” Red Stick Social owner Robert Lay said earlier this week. Some of the original lights were used in the new light fixtures. “This perfectly captures the essence of our rehab.”
Lay said Red Stick Social will have a number of features spread across the building. There will be 10 bowling lanes, a venue for live music, private meeting spaces, multiple bars and full-service kitchen serving "elevated bar food." In the spring, a beer garden and a rooftop deck with a view of downtown are set to open. Plans are to host everything in the facility: ranging from children’s birthday parties, corporate team-building events, bachelor parties to anniversary parties.
“Baton Rouge didn’t have everything like this under one roof,” Lay said.