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The Salena Jones Restaurant, Jazz & Music Room was open from November 10th 2001 until 29th June 2002 This was the realisation of Salena`s career-long ambition to have her own music room as a base from which to work herself, to promote other artists and to offer good music in a nice quality environment – sadly, there being very few such venues in London or Britain generally. The club was located at 184 Uxbridge Road, Shepherd`s Bush Green, West London, England W12 7JP and licensed for up to 200 people in a 3,000 sq ft basement room. We took possession in August 2001 and completely refurbished and redecorated the premises, doing much of the work ourselves. All fixtures and fittings were replaced. Kawai, Japan`s leading piano manufacturer, generously provided a baby grand piano on favourable terms. Pictures of the room and the fine restaurant food can be seen by clicking on “PICTURE GALLERY”. A review of the club, written by Barb Jungr of “The Singer” magazine can be read by clicking on “CLUB REVIEW”. Many leading British based jazz artists appeared at the club, as did Richie Cole, Karrin Allyson and Teddy Royal from the USA. We were honoured to receive visits from Mr Tony Bennett, who came to renew his friendship and to see Salena on stage (and told her that she was “singing her brains out”), Marian Montgomery, Patti Boulaye, Anita Harris and various Members of Parliament, including the Deputy Prime Minister. We did well to raise the capital and acquire the premises in the first place and, indeed, to actually put the whole thing together. We made tangible progress in establishing the club and the experience only served to confirm our belief that there is a market for what we were offering. But we knew from the outset that it was a high risk start-up and we just weren`t getting sufficient people through the doors fast enough - and so it was only responsible to turn off the lights and close the doors whilst we were still able to pay off the staff, suppliers and repay membership fees. We had many wonderful evenings and the disappointment of our patrons at the closure can be gauged by clicking on “TESTIMONIALS” But we are proud of what we achieved, in spite of the financial loss that we and our backer suffered, and only sorry that we could not make it work financially in the relatively short period that our limited resources permitted.
