Remember, it’s about the art, not the mistakes.

That gem comes courtesy of Bricey Williams, host at Santa Fe’s Cake’s Café one night in May 2025. 

If you ask this open mic tourist, that’s about all you need to know to gauge the vibe – chill and friendly. An easy ride for a newcomer. Which is how all open mics should be. 

Despite being right in the city’s historic district (and easy walking distance from the plaza with the big art market), Cake’s offers up a not-all-that-Southwest-y vibe. More than a little reminiscent of the way Emergency Arts in Las Vegas (home to The Human Experience open mic) made a point of not being all neon-casino-outrageous.

It’s got everything a café needs – diner counter and bistro tables, all-day breakfast, a cook named Augie (or at least that’s what it sounded like…he was super busy, no time for chatting).

It’s also got a clear commitment to being a hub for local creatives. There’s comedy night, karoke night, hip-hop night, high tea and tarot, death café…and an anything-goes open mic every Wednesday.

Passing the torch

On the night in question, Bricey was half of a hosting team. The other being Dylan, who was there to learn the ropes before hosting a show solo. 

This got me thinking about whether/when/how – and most importantly who – I might initiate into the secret society of open mic hosts to take custody of Tongue & Groove someday. Aside from the folks at Red Dirt Home for Wayward Poets in OKC, I’ve never heard of anyone teaching the art. 

I mean, all an aspiring host needs by way of skills is a reasonable level of comfort at the mic, which is easy enough acquire — just start going to open mics. Beyond that, there’s really only three other requisite qualifiers: 

• An abiding love for your local creative community
• A full measure of heart-on-your-sleeve sincerity
• A commitment to showing up.

(So if that’s you and you’re in the Raleigh area, let’s chat. Because in 10 or 13 years, I may be ready to retire.)

But back to Cake’s…

On the night I hit Cake’s, the list included people playing cover tunes and originals, a couple poets, two memoirists, a rap artist, and a woman who played jazz instrumental tracks from her phone and improvised lyrics based on words provided by the audience.

Each slot was 12 minutes, giving the musicians plenty of time for three generous songs and the prose writers time to tell us a nice, juicy story.

And, blessedly, the poets all seemed to know the Open Mic Principle of Relative Density, which dictates that 5-6 minutes is all an open mic audience needs from us (more on this in a minute). Anything more creeps into feature set territory.

Anything-goes open mics FTW

If you ask me, variety open mics like Cake’s are better in all ways than genre-specific shows for at least three reasons:

• The host and venue benefit by expanding the pool of local talent they can draw. 
• The performers benefit from cross-pollinating artforms and styles. 
• The audience benefits by the subtle (and not so subtle) shifts between poetry, music, stories, and whatever else is on tap.

And by “shifts,” I really mean relief. 

Because of all the performance arts, poetry is the densest. An unbroken string of poems is – even for a diehard verse-fiend like myself – a lot to process. Us poets are the most likely to need a content warning and, let’s be honest here, the least likely to be funny. Giving the audience a little space between us is a piece of mercy. 

By welcoming more types of performers, your open mic can grow faster and foster a bigger, broader creative community. Perhaps best of all, you create opportunities for novel collabs and mixed genre duets. 

A big giant asterisk

I failed to ask whether Cake’s open mic allows comics. None showed up the night I went, but given that they host a dedicated comedy night, I’ll go on record as trusting that they don’t.

Comedy is the exception that proves my variety-is-better rule. 

As a performer who’s done open mics in 39 states and a host with 10 years of shows under her belt, I will die on this hill: The potential dissonance between a deeply personal poem and sex jokes, bathroom jokes, and other taboo-breaking humor styles is tectonic. 

No host can smooth over that kind of emotional whiplash. And no bawdy comic or big-feels poet should be asked to bridge that chasm, especially not if it’s their first time. 

Ergo my advice to the aspiring open mic organizer and host: Either go all-in on comedy or everything but.

Piece of Cake’s

Nearly four-fifths of the way through my extended tour of the United States of Open Mic, I’m happy to say that Cake’s is another good one. Terrific space, thoughtful hosts, welcoming to new voices — and, if Santa Fe is your local, well-suited for anyone looking to become a regular.

Why become a regular? So many reasons…