Walker West names auditorium for Rondo’s Mychael and Stephanie Wright

Mychael and Stephanie Wright say they never did their work in Rondo for recognition. Their neighbors noticed anyway.

Walker West Music Academy dedicated its auditorium to the couple on Oct. 25. The Wrights own Golden Thyme Coffee & Cafe and founded the Selby Avenue JazzFest. The academy said the honor recognizes decades of commitment to the Rondo community.

“We just do the work that makes the most sense to us, never looking for accolades,” Mychael Wright said. “But with something on this magnitude, having a performance hall dedicated to us is something we never dreamed of. It never crossed our mind.”

Dr. Charles Morgan, executive director at Walker West, said the academy chose the Wrights for “their work in the community, developing business, developing relationships within the community, creating bridges and connections between entities, and just decades of commitment and work to the Rondo community.”

“We thought that they should be recognized for that enduring labor,” Morgan said.

[Founders’ quotes: why the Wrights, why now, and what they hope students take from the space.]

For Mychael Wright, the honor reflects something he learned growing up in the neighborhood.

“When you do right by your community, they do right by you without you even knowing about it,” he said. “That makes it that much more special.”

Stephanie Wright said the recognition touched her deeply.

“It was just heartwarming for them to even think about us in that kind of way,” she said. “It’s not like we’re looking for anything. We just enjoy people and our community. We really, really appreciate them doing that for us.”

Music has always been at the heart of what the Wrights built. Mychael Wright came from the entertainment world and once ran the Glam Slam nightclub. When the couple opened Golden Thyme, they made jazz its theme and named the drinks after iconic jazz artists.

They opened the first Golden Thyme in an area Mychael Wright said many people had avoided for years. At first, it took time for customers to slow down and settle in, he said.

“We got to a point where our folks, once they got used to it, it was their place,” he said. “Stephanie and I put this vehicle together as far as the business, but the people drive it.”

That sense of ownership mattered, he said, because Black residents had few places to simply relax.

“Golden Thyme became a place where we as Black people were able to let our hair down and be ourselves,” he said.

Walker West now carries part of that legacy forward. The academy took over the Selby Avenue JazzFest in 2024. Morgan said running the festival lets the academy continue “that wonderful event in the neighborhood and in the community,” and the work the Wrights built over nearly 25 years.

He called the dedication “a wonderful catalyst for people to really understand and know that there are people that have been committed over the long term for the well-being of people individually as well as the community collectively.”

The Wrights’ commitment to community goes back to their own childhoods in Rondo, when the original Hallie Q. Brown Community Center was what Mychael Wright called “ground zero.”

“We were raised by the community,” he said. “If you did wrong somewhere, by the time you got home, your mom and dad knew it. That was Rondo, when we all truly looked out for each other.”

He worries some of that has been lost. His advice for young people hoping to build their own legacy: start, and stay patient.

“Don’t be a ‘what if,’” he said. “It’s not a walk in the park. It’s a long-distance run.”

He recalled running what he called one of the top nightclubs in the country while he and his wife shared a Honda Civic hatchback.

“It’s not about the superficial or what people see on the surface,” he said. “It’s about putting that money back into the business, back into your savings or back into yourself.”

Above all, he said, a business has to make people feel truly welcome, “and they will know if it’s true or not.”

Looking at the new hall, Mychael Wright thinks about who will use it next.

“I look at that beautiful performance hall and the young people and instructors that will step on that stage,” he said. “What a gem. What a beautiful addition it is to our community and the Rondo community.”

For more information on Walker West Music Academy, visit www.walkerwest.org/.

Jasmine McBride welcomes reader responses at jmcbride@spokesman-recorder.com.

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