On Benning Road NE, sandwiched between a local supermarket, a bank, and the Northeast Performing Arts Group headquarters, is a low-slung white brick building. If not for the shouts of color from the murals embellishing its exterior walls, you might miss it when passing by. This is Chateau Lounge, a neighborhood hot spot that’s been a fulcrum for east of the river communities for more than 50 years and that—since April—has been resuscitated by the building’s new managers, Kia Wallace and Lasharn Monroe.
Colloquially translated, Chateau is French for the sort of grand house that’s synonymous with the nobility of a bygone era. River Terrace’s Chateau Lounge might not aesthetically match the graceful Gallic residences its name borrows from but much like them it’s long been a focal point for surrounding neighborhoods and has hosted many a celebration during its heyday. To stretch the metaphor, if Chateau was the grand house, then founder Seresa Coleman was the lord of the manor.
Coleman (or ‘Nut’ as he was known to friends and regulars) opened the nightclub, back then called simply “Chateau,” in 1967. Before that, the building housed an old Jumbo Food Store. Beverly Lindsay-Johnson, executive director of the African American Music Association and president of the National Hand Dance Association, remembers Coleman fondly: “He was very much a community person. Everyone knew Mr. Coleman. He used to host a cookout every summer in the parking lot next to Chateau.”…