On April 18, Traverse City will experience its first “pop-up” social club and dry bar. Hosted at the Om Café on Lake Avenue, the event is one of several coming down the pipeline as Om owner Jason Thibodeau prepares to transform and rename the restaurant into a full-time event space.

The Cooks’ House and Front Street Tattoo are partnering together to offer The Hungry Monkey, a one-night-only club experience featuring live DJs, food, craft beverages and bar games from 6pm-12am. The catch? No alcohol of any kind will be served. “There’s no place to go out in town where it’s not all focused on alcohol,” explains The Cooks’ House co-owner Jennifer Blakeslee.

From customers who can’t go into restaurants that serve alcohol by the glass because of drunk-driving violations to patrons in recovery to those who simply choose not to imbibe, there are “so many people who want to go out that don’t want to do the bar scene,” says Blakeslee. At the event, Blakeslee and The Cooks’ House co-owner Eric Patterson will serve up a menu of six food dishes while bartenders create fresh-made “mocktails” like The Laidback (a take on gin-and-juice with fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice and rosemary simple syrup), Monkey Mule (a play on a Moscow Mule) and an ode to Kahlua and Cream featuring coffee simple syrup, almond milk and a hint of saffron.

Dry bars are becoming increasingly popular nationwide: Brillig Dry Bar, another pop-up in Ann Arbor, was an immediate hit when it launched in December. “We just wanted to do something different. If it’s well-received and people enjoy it, we’ll probably do it on a monthly basis," says Blakeslee.

The Hungry Monkey is one of several types of events Thibodeau hopes to attract to his former Om Cafe dining room. After closing the restaurant for the winter - “with every intention of reopening in the spring," he says - the owner began booking wedding rehearsals, business luncheons and food events to fill up the off-season and quickly realized an event space offered more market potential than a restaurant.

In addition to the burgeoning rental business, Thibodeau is already in talks with other area cooks to host pop-up dinners and special events in the space. On April 1, K2 Edibles will host an “Indian Family Style Dinner," while a Lebanese-themed dinner event is in the works for later that month. Thibodeau envisions food truck owners using the kitchen in mornings for prep work, while up-and-coming chefs can take advantage of the site to market-test restaurant concepts (similar to the pop-up space offered this winter by The Little Fleet).

The entire event space formerly called Om Cafe will now be christened the Northern Express Room At The Parlor, marking a partnership between Thibodeau and Northern Express, The Ticker's sister publication. The space will eventually feature Northern Express branding throughout, and the Express will also be hosting its own public and ticketed social events at the space, including its first one in mid-May (details to be announced soon).