Chautauqua Hall Dance Club

The only reason that I'm dropping a rating here is because when I searched for Salsa Dancing in Monterey, this came up as #1. But sadly, the montereysalsa team has ceased their lessons and dance socials at this location. I wish they would start it back up again!! Those were the days!
For now, Salsa dancing in Monterey can be found at the Blue Fin Billiards every Thursday night in the glass room (AKA the Aqua Lounge).

As for the Hall itself, they keep the floor nice, it has a lot of great features. As a dance club, I wish that they would have a more user friendly and updated website. When things change, it's important to keep up on the internet listings so people know what's going on.

If you are visiting the Monterey Peninsula and like to ballroom dance, you must go to Chautauqua Hall on a Saturday night!  We are so fortunate to have Chautauqua Hall and the Chautauqua Hall Dance Club.  It's a throw-back to the era of barn dances and when they open the huge windows, it's like dancing under the stars.  We don't get to go there as often as we'd like because we provide music for weddings which usually occur on Saturday nights, but we go when we can.

What? wow! We had our wedding reception here and some of the reasons why we loved it was because it's historical, there are super high vaulted ceilings, a kitchen with a makeshift bar, huge barn like doors that open into the room (but can also be closed) benches all throughout which we decorated with pillows, tables, chairs, a tiered patio outside with 5 benches and a gazebo. We had a "small" gathering of around 120 guests. We had a bluegrass band (awesome local group-Microtonic Harmonic) and then an 80's Dj~ so people could get their groove on. There was room for the super fantastically delicious cake that our friends Kari and Mike made, gift table, photo booth that we created, dancing and food that we had catered from Hula's. We liked that we were able to call the shots with who served the food (friends and Universal Staffing), where we got our alcohol(Costco, Safeway, Wrath, Heller, Tobin James) from, who was doing our  Flowers by Petal Unique Designs in Soquel...Anyway you get the idea. Some of the money that you pay for using this great place goes toward keeping it in good shape and is also tax deductible. As far as wedding venues go, I would say this is a little known secret.

It is absolutely perfect for those who want an ambience of austerity mixed with a bit of modern day frivolity in the heart of the "last hometown".