The Casbah Coffee Club

The Casbah Coffee Club was a rock and roll music venue in the West Derby area of Liverpool, England, that operated from 1959 to 1962. Started by Mona Best in the cellar of the family home,[1] the Casbah was planned as a members-only club for her sons Pete and Rory and their friends, to meet and listen to the popular music of the day. Mona came up with the idea of the club after watching a TV report about The 2i’s Coffee Bar in London’s Soho where several singers had been discovered. The Quarrymen ? John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ken Brown ? went to the club to arrange their first booking, to which Mona agreed, but said she needed to finish painting the club first. All four took up brushes and helped Mona to finish painting the walls with spiders, dragons, rainbows and stars. In addition to the four boys’ artistic contributions, Cynthia Powell, later to become Cynthia Lennon, painted a silhouette of John on the wall, which can still be seen today. The group often played at The Casbah as other venues, like The Cavern Club, had a jazz-only policy at that time. The cellar ? with its original decoration ? still exists.