Altar, a bar, record shop and 100-capacity basement venue at 7 Church Lane in Leytonstone, east London, opens on Friday, October 23, 2026, in the council-owned building that was Luna Lounge until July 2024. Simian Mobile Disco DJ the free opening party, and Louis Theroux, Suggs and Girl In The Year Above follow before Christmas.
Luna Lounge ran for nearly 20 years. After founder Suja Khaled died in 2021, the business passed to Declan Walsh, whose tenure the Waltham Forest Echo describes as marked by financial strain, licensing disputes and an unsuccessful £75,000 crowdfunding appeal in 2024. The venue closed weeks after the fundraiser ended, and the building sat empty for more than two years.
Who is running Altar, and what is different this time?
In January 2026 Waltham Forest Council, which owns the building, appointed four groups of operators with local roots: Simon Singleton, founder of the Shake The High Road festival; Jon Clifford of Leyton's Dreamhouse Records; Toby L, the Transgressive Records founder whom NME calls Altar's founder; and Danny, Peter and Luke of the bars Leyton Calling and Chop Shop Tavern.
The building is split into several businesses rather than one. The ground floor is a bar with a drinks list from the Chop Shop Tavern team and a hot dog menu. Dreamhouse Records runs a small shop selling new and used vinyl. The basement holds 100 people for gigs and club nights, and doubles as free rehearsal space for young local artists, with facilities for recording live sessions and podcasts.
Singleton has been direct about why. “Luna was very successful as a kind of party bar atmosphere,” he told the Waltham Forest Echo in February, adding that the new team wants the venue to be sustainable over the long term and to draw people from beyond the neighbourhood.
The gigs are why Altar exists. The bar, the vinyl and the hot dogs are how it plans to keep them.
What is on the opening bill?
NME published the first programme on October 16.
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| Oct 23 | Opening party: Simian Mobile Disco (DJ), Kate Hutchinson, ALTAR DJs (free entry, first come, first served) |
| Oct 28 | Shake The High Road presents The Kitchen Sink Band and Cass Why |
| Nov 6 | ALTAR Lates: Alexis Taylor of Hot Chip (DJ) |
| Nov 16 | ALTAR Talks: An Evening With Louis Theroux, in conversation with Toby L |
| Dec 16 | ALTAR Piano Nights: Ed Harcourt |
| Dec 17 | ALTAR Piano Nights: Suggs |
| Dec 18 | ALTAR & Transgressive present Girl In The Year Above |
The venue also announced three community strands: Altar Under-18, nights booked solely for younger artists; Altar Mentorships; and Altar Rehearsals, free basement sessions for local musicians. War Child is the launch charity partner. “It’s a truly indicative sign of the immense breadth of talent from every generation, level and genre that this city has to offer,” Singleton, Clifford and Toby L said in NME.
Why does one 100-capacity room matter?
Because the rooms this size keep disappearing. Music Venue Trust's Annual Report 2025, published in January 2026, found that 30 grassroots music venues permanently closed over the past year, and that 175 UK towns and cities, home to an estimated 25 million people, no longer receive regular touring shows by professional artists.
The same report counts 6,000 jobs lost, a 19% contraction of the workforce, which MVT blames on changes to national insurance and business rates. Its conclusion is blunt: financial viability is the main cause, and the current economic models for grassroots live music are no longer working.
We have reached the limits of what venues can absorb on margins of 2.5%.Mark Davyd, Music Venue Trust CEO, Annual Report 2025 launch
That is the case for Altar's layout. A record shop, a daytime bar and a rehearsal room are not a side hustle here; they are the attempt at a model that does not lean on ticket income alone, inside a building whose landlord wants it to stay a music venue. Other places are trying law instead, as New South Wales did with its Contemporary Music Act, while ticket economics keep pushing demand toward stadiums over small rooms.
What happens next?
The timeline has already moved once: the council's January announcement promised a full opening in late summer 2026. The test begins on October 23, and the real one is whether the basement is still full next October.