[photo credit; Ice House Comedy Club]
That building is the Ice House, and these days the comedy is the whole point. The club opened in 1960 and reopened in 2023 after a years-long renovation and pandemic closure under Los Angeles Lakers co-owner Johnny Buss, and it is again running live stand-up on its regular nights through July. The Ice House bills itself as the oldest comedy club in the country — a description carried in its Visit Pasadena directory listing and echoed by news outlets that have called it the oldest still-standing or continuously operating comedy club in the United States. Promotional listings for the club say it now stages roughly 100 shows a month across two showrooms.
The venue’s own history complicates that superlative. When Pasadena businessman Willard Chilcott opened the Ice House in 1960, it was primarily a folk-music room. Stand-up did not become the main draw until a group of investors led by Bob Fisher bought the club and changed its format in 1978.
“The Ice House was originally a folk music club, and they would sprinkle comics in,” Buss said in an interview with Pasadena Weekly. “That’s how it actually started out.”
Buss, a son of the late Lakers owner Dr. Jerry Buss, bought the club in 2019. Months later the pandemic forced it shut, and he used the closure to rebuild the interior. The renovated club reopened in early 2023 with two showrooms — a main room seating about 165 and a second holding about 100 — plus a VIP room overlooking the main stage. Pasadena Now has reported that the overhaul cost about $4 million.
“I thought I had an obligation to do stand-up comedy to keep this club alive for another 60 years,” Buss told Pasadena Weekly.
Comedian Margaret Cho, who headlined the 2023 grand reopening, offered her own assessment. “I love the new club,” she said in an interview with VenuesNow. “It retains the same magic, but with an upscale and modern reimagining.”
Over the decades the Ice House stage has held Jerry Seinfeld, Robin Williams, David Letterman, Jay Leno, Ellen DeGeneres and Gabriel Iglesias, among many others. For Buss, that lineage is the point. “If you’re wanting to be a comedian, your rite of passage is through The Ice House in Pasadena,” he told VenuesNow.
Need to Know: The Ice House Comedy Club is at 24 North Mentor Avenue, Pasadena, in the Playhouse Village neighborhood. Live shows generally run Tuesday and Thursday through Saturday; the club is typically closed Monday, Wednesday and Sunday. Shows are ticketed, with prices varying by performance and a two-item minimum per seat; age restrictions vary by show. For the current lineup, ticket prices and reservations, call (626) 414-2386 or visit icehousecomedy.com.
Sixty-five years after the first act took its stage, the lights are on again on Mentor Avenue — and most nights of the week, someone is standing in them, waiting for the laugh.
Ice House Comedy Club — Nightly Shows | Dates: Nightly throughout July (Tue, Thu–Sat typically) | 📍 24 N. Mentor Ave., Pasadena |🔗 https://icehousecomedy.com/ Visit Pasadena
