New date for postponed grand opening of ‘classy’ cabaret and cocktail bar in Sleaford

Stephanie Hazzard-Smith, of tattooing and piercing studio Hazzards Emporium, in Sleaford, has taken on upstairs premises at 86B Southgate and is currently renovating it.

The Alchemy Room was due to open on Saturday November 29 and would follow up with four more special nights in December, including a New Year’s Eve cabaret celebration. However, Steph explained that she has opted to put off the opening until January 31 after she discovered she needed to submit a new change of use application to North Kesteven District Council for the building as the new occupier, despite it having previously held the same classification under previous tenants.

She apologised to customers for not being able to open when they had hoped. “We hope they will bear with us and we will make it bigger and better in January,” she said.

The opening night, which was to include a drag artist host and a burlesque performer, was almost fully booked with over 60 tickets taken.

Steph said: “Most people have been able to change to the new date, which is awesome. Sme people have not been able to make the new date so have been refunded. But we have had to cancel the acts last minute, so it has been a real disappointment."

She has enlisted architects and said: "Now the planning application is in and takes at least six weeks, so we have pushed the opening date back to January 31. We will get the new year out of the way and then let’s celebrate!”

After their opening night she has plans for a Valentines event in February and others in the planning stage. Steph explained the idea was born a couple of years ago when she went on an anniversary weekend to London and was recommended to visit a cabaret club. She said: “It was beautiful. Everybody was dressed up. It was a really fun, friendly atmosphere and nothing like I had ever been to. I said, ‘this is amazing, imagine if we had something like that near us’.”

This summer she ran the bar at their tattoo convention in Lincoln, having worked as a bar manager for years and it reminded her how much she loved it. These ideas married together when they saw this place was available.

She said: "I have created a business from what I would want to do on a night out – somewhere nice and comfortable to sit where I can talk to the person next to me and I’m not going to get shoved or jostled at the bar. I’m 44, I’m too old for that!

"I just want somewhere nice to go where I can dress up nice, sit with my friends and there is entertainment going on. It may not be a place you want to go to every night, but we are going to have such a variety of stuff going on that you could look at the calendar and think, ‘I like what they are doing in May and August, so I’ll book for those two’.”

She said as people maybe cannot afford to go out every weekend, when they do go out they want it to be something of an occasion or event and that is what they are trying to provide.

Without giving away the surprise, Steph has gone for luxuriously classy interior decor and said: “I want it to feel like you have stepped back in time! It’s going to be nothing like anything else we have around here.

"We want it to be unique but don’t want to step on toes of friends who run other bars in town who have been really supportive.”

She said this collaboration will make the town a more attractive destination for potential revellers, bringing more people and investment into the night-time economy, which has been so hard-pressed in recent years. “That way people won’t just visit for a single reason, they can make a day or weekend of it, so everybody benefits,” she explained. Steph commented: “Cabaret isn’t just burlesque, it is about the type of music and so much more that we can do. We are looking at doing comedy or murder mystery nights, themed movie nights when you would come dressed for that movie with cocktails tailored. Something that would be a lot of fun and you are talking about for months afterwards. We want to make it as interesting, fun and inclusive as possible.”

See https://www.facebook.com/people/The-Alchemy-Room/61579907027914/ for details of future events and tickets.