New Bar to Open Above Liquid Blu Next Month

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – A new bar will open above Liquid Blu next month, one of the new venue’s owners said Tuesday. 

The Thirsty Peanut will offer more of a “rustic feeling” than the first-floor venue, which is more of a nightclub, owner Vincente Turner said. 

“It’s more like a dive-bar feeling,” Turner said.  

Turner, who co-owns the Thirsty Peanut and Liquid Blu with two others, sought and received approval for an exterior sign for the building, 21 W. Federal St., from the city’s Design Review Committee. 

The committee also approved a variance for the three-foot-by-three-foot, double-sided projecting sign will extend out further than the one foot in the city’s guidelines. The sign will be mounted 10 feet above the ground, two feet higher than the eight-foot requirement.

“I don’t see a problem with it,” said John DeFrance, an architect who serves on the committee.

The second-floor space has not been in use, Turner said. He and the other owners have done much of the renovation work themselves and are in the touchup phase of finishing the space, which they expect to open in early November.   

Thirsty Peanut will feature food, keg beer, pool tables and a jukebox. “There’s no place downtown to shoot pool at,” he said. 

Said First Ward councilman Julius Oliver, “I love to see how the downtown businesses keep reinventing themselves and keep adding things.”

In addition to opening the Thirsty Peanut, Turner said he and his partners are planning to expand days and hours of operation at Liquid Blu, and begin offering lunch. 

Copyright 2024 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.