Since the Avery opened for business on April 14, “it’s been great,” the managing proprietor says, with a lot of people coming through from the neighborhood and some who were familiar with the location, which had functioned, pre-Decatur, as a social club for many years.
A genial military brat who grew up in Providence and went to URI, [John] Richard, 45, broke into nightlife about 15 years ago, with a short-lived bouncing stint, when the second incarnation of Lupo’s opened in the Peerless Building.
Bartending proved a better fit, and he went on to do that at J.G. Goff’s, Amsterdam’s, Club Babyhead, Jerky’s, Jake’s, and the Decatur, in its first six months. Richard gave up his last ”professional job,” as the director of governmental relations and advocacy for the American Cancer Society, about three years ago, and he worked his final Lupo’s gig last week.
In a reflection of the high-low identity that the Avery seeks to cultivate, Richard rightly calls it a place whose original design is distinct from the priciest places in town and yet where you can nonetheless get a can of Narragansett for $2.