Paul Grimshaw | Weekly Surge
Erin Burge
Because my favorite KISS song is “Beth,” the sticky sweet power ballad that played against type, becoming a not so rock ‘n’ roll hit in 1976, I’ll probably be shunned by many hardcore KISS fans. Even before “Beth” shot to No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart that year, becoming the band’s highest charting single, I had been witness, as a teenager, to KISS’ garish, gaudy and ghoulish world debut a few years earlier. My friends and I thought of the band as an oddity, a comedic group of twenty-somethings from New York City with a few catchy rock ‘n’ roll tunes, destined to sell a bunch of Halloween costumes, fade out, and not be heard from again. Boy, were we wrong. KISS went on to define theatrical rock ‘n’ roll and marketing savvy in ways that few bands, if any, before or since, have matched, including the KISS Coffeehouse right here in li’l ol’ Myrtle Beach.
By the time the tongue-wagging, blood spitting, fire-breathing KISS bassist Gene Simmons came to Broadway at the Beach, with Starchild Paul Stanley, to open the KISS Coffeehouse in the summer of 2006, I had gained a new respect for the juggernaut and marketing genius that was and is the KISS empire. Simmons, the primary business mastermind behind the realm, has led the band-turned-brand through murky waters, highs and lows, and back to highs again. Along the way the KISS Army, the so-named troops in the official fan club of the band, bolster profits as they pay for annual memberships (currently $45), snap up merchandise, attend conventions, and fill concert venues. Former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice enlisted in the KISS Army in 2008. Yep.
Thousands in the KISS Army (officially or unofficially) have visited the one and only KISS Coffeehouse, located at Broadway at the Beach, in Myrtle Beach, but perhaps too few loyal troops graced its funky counters to make its registers rock year-round. Serving a damn good cup o’ Joe, locals and visitors enjoy snacks and real barista-made coffee drinks at this curiosity that is part KISS merchandise retail store, part museum, and part demon-possessed Starbucks. Several weeks ago fans, casual to rabid, were saddened, though maybe not complexly surprised, to hear that the KISS Coffeehouse would close its doors forever. Word spread that Broadway at the Beach, and the Grand Strand, would no longer enjoy its most obvious link to the world of KISS.
Original reports had the store closing at the end of this month, but Weekly Surge has learned that the Coffeehouse will stay open through Dec. 31, complete with a proper send-off, tentatively including: a Dec 28 party with a KISS tribute band, a meet-n-greet with an undetermined member of KISS, and fire sale deals on any remaining stock.