Iconic Hermann’s Jazz Club to close next month

The city will soon be saying goodbye to yet another music institution. Hermann’s Jazz Club, the longest continuously running jazz club in Canada, will play its last song on April 30.

The club’s board of directors made the decision to shutter operations at Hermann’s, View Street Social, and Arts on View Society—the non-profit dedicated to keeping music alive at the venues—after “prudent deliberation.”

“This was not a decision we arrived at lightly,” the board shared Thursday on social media.

The board said it had worked to stabilize the organization’s finances and improve operations, exploring “every reasonable path forward.”

“While we made meaningful progress, the financial challenges we inherited from previous leadership proved too significant to overcome in a sustainable way,” the board said.

The iconic jazz club began in 1981 as a small operation in the Bastion Inn on Government Street, garnering a reputation for hosting great parties and swinging live music. Its founder, Hermann Nieweler, eventually moved the space to its View Street location, rebranding it as Hermann’s Jazz Club.

Nieweler died in 2015, leaving ownership of the View building to his estate.

The venue has faced its fair share of financial issues over the years. In 2019, the “Hermann’s building”—colloquially named for the jazz club it housed—was listed for sale. It seemed to be the end of the road for the venues until Arts on View Society stepped in to lease the Jazz Club, View Street Social, and Hermann’s Upstairs. The building was taken off the market in light of the long-term lease.

In 2024, Arts on View announced it would terminate the lease for Hermann’s Upstairs, a two-room performing area that hosted popular dance parties and more underground music, to focus its efforts on the Jazz Club and neighbouring View Street Social.

Not long after the Upstairs closure was announced, the City of Victoria swooped in to buy the building from Nieweler’s estate for $3.4M. Later that year, a new tenant was found to bring music back to the space. Since early 2025, The Coda has operated on the upper floor of the Hermann’s Building.

The Coda’s owners shared on social media that they were “deeply saddened to hear the news” on Thursday.

“While we operate independently from the Arts on View Society, we share the same walls, the same history, and the same passion for providing a stage for artists,” The Coda team said.

The Coda team called Hermann’s Jazz Club a “pillar of cultural history,” encouraging patrons to support it and View Street Social in their final weeks of operation.

“Let’s give these iconic spaces the send-off they deserve.”

The Coda isn’t going anywhere—its scheduled events are moving forward as usual, with the team saying it’s “working hard to ensure that live music continues to thrive in Victoria.”

Hermann’s will “complete a structured wind-down of operations” in the coming weeks, and the board says it will communicate any changes to scheduled events before shutting its doors for good on May 1.

Of the many venues that have closed in Victoria over the last five years, Hermann’s seemed to be a reliable mainstay of the downtown arts scene. As Logan’s Pub, Carlton Club, Victoria Events Centre, Quadratic Sound, and other event locations shuttered, Hermann’s hung on with the support of the arts community. But the financial constraints of the operation and maintenance costs eventually caught up, leading its board to call it quits this week.

“This is not the ending anyone hoped for, but we are deeply grateful for everything that was created together and the memories we all share,” said the Hermann’s board of directors.

This week, another event venue announced it could be facing closure. Other Guise Theatre Society’s venue at 716 Johnson opened in November, hosting dance parties, live music, and markets. But its team says it needs an investor to back the operation, with $1.2M needed to payout a former investor. If one isn’t found by the end of March, it too will join the list of Victoria’s event-venue casualties.