The scene at The Muse was like something out of the movie RoadHouse when Mike O’Reilly walked onto the scene in the early ’90s. It was a tough, burly dive bar with an underused stage. And then, like magic, the scene exploded. All of a sudden, some of the biggest bands in the country made a pit stop at The Muse as part of their national tours—bands like Hootie & the Blowfish and the Dave Matthews Band.

But like all things, the days of big-name bands at The Muse came to an end. Those concerts became the stuff of legend. For years, the band photos that line the walls of the restaurant seemed to serve as a reminder of a past life. So it was a welcome surprise when The Muse started booking touring acts at the venue once again this summer.

“It was a go-to place, and the adrenaline of the people in the audiences and the bands that came with it was amazing,” said O’Reilly, owner of The Muse. “People were very curious, asking what we were doing. And then people just started digging it. They dug it right away, which pushed me to keep going and going. And now that spirit is back.”

The Dave Matthews Band played their first gig at The Muse in 1993, before the band—perhaps the most influential of the ’90s—signed a major record deal with RCA Records. Their second performance one year later marked their final appearance on Nantucket, just months before their debut studio album Under the Table and Dreaming went platinum and launched the jazz-rock-jam band into superstardom.

The Sugarhill Gang also performed at The Muse in the ’90s. During that stop, O’Reilly asked for their autograph. “They were these giant guys, and here I was,” said O’Reilly, who is a tall man himself at an imposing 6 feet, 4 inches. “When else would you have the opportunity to sit down for dinner with somebody that’s selling out stadiums?” Other big acts O’Reilly brought to The Muse throughout the ’90s and early2000s included George Clinton, Guster, Hootie &the Blowfish, Inner Circle, Sister Hazel, Toots and the Maytals, Train and The Wailers—the backing band for the late reggae legend Bob Marley. Some of the bands had already made it big. Some were up-and-coming acts trying to make a name for themselves.

One of those new acts was John Mayer, then a rising singer-songwriter. This was before he won his first of seven Grammy Awards in 2002. “After his first show, he came back the next day and sat on the stage by himself, just playing guitar and writing lyrics. We took him out to a keg party out in Polpis and nobody knew who he was,” O’Reilly said. “He was a wallflower, and now look at him, he’s out there in front of everybody.”

as a time when everybody knew everybody. College students working day jobs as lifeguards took part-time gigs cooking pizza in the kitchen behind the bar. The bartenders worked late nights and became friends with the regulars. “It was the kind of place people would come to and feel at home,” O’Reilly said. “For a lot of people, they could say, ‘This is my bar.’"