Bars & clubs / Cass Corridor (Cass at Charlotte St)
The Gold Dollar
Closed – archive entry · 2001
A former Cass Corridor bar on Cass Avenue (1930s–2001): for decades one of Detroit's best-known drag-show bars, then the cradle of the city's garage-rock revival from 1996 to 2001.
01 / The story of this place
Make time for these
The Gold Dollar at 3129 Cass Avenue opened in the 1930s, was a “show bar” with strip acts in the 1950s, and from the late 1950s or early 1960s until the late 1980s was one of Detroit's best-known drag-show bars; press accounts date the drag era from 1956, while performer David Hummel said he and fellow cast members from the Diplomat opened its first drag show in 1962, and queens such as Chili Pepper, Twiggy and Betty Clark performed for an audience regulars recall as largely straight. In 1996 new owner Neil Yee reopened it as a small live-music bar with an elevated stage, and it became the cradle of Detroit's garage-rock revival: The White Stripes played their first show there in August 1997, alongside The Go, the Detroit Cobras and dozens of other bands, until it closed in 2001. The vacant building was gutted by a suspicious fire in July 2019 and demolished that August.
- Decades as a drag-show bar
- The White Stripes' first show, 1997
- Garage rock from 1996 to 2001
Famous Detroiters
Famous people tied to this place 2
Lexicon entries for the people who lived, worked, performed or liked to spend time here.
- Jack White born 1975 · guitarist, singer, songwriter, producer
Performed here
Cass Corridor bar and music venue (1996–2001 as a rock club) where the White Stripes played their first show. The vacant building burned in July 2019 and was torn down.
- Meg White born 1974 · drummer, singer
Performed here
Cass Corridor bar where the White Stripes played their first show in 1997. The empty building burned in 2019 and was demolished.
Sources & fact check · Checked: 2026-09-25
An independently written bilingual guide. This collection is not an attendance-based ranking.
03 / Events
Events at this place
Published events automatically linked from our event guide. Times are local to the venue.
We have no published upcoming events linked to this place yet. That does not mean the venue has no events; check its official calendar too.
Source and former website ↗