Peabody's Olio To Host 'After Party' To Celebrate Triumphant Return

PEABODY, MA — Sarah Narcus was off to a roaring start and ready for so much more after she and her mother and business partner, Ellen, opened the wedding and event venue Olio in 2019 following a $1 million renovation to the old Peabody theater on Main Street.

"We had a half year's worth of operations and when we looked at it at the end of the year we kind of patted each other on the back for what we had done," Narcus told Patch. "We had no idea what was coming."

Olio hosted a February party, and had a spring full of events booked, when the cancellations began coming in at the beginning of March 2020.

Two weeks later, her new business with seemingly unlimited potential was effectively shut down for the next 15 months.

"We realized pretty quickly that we needed to prepare to be closed for a year and it turned out to be longer than that," she said. "We took some pretty crazy steps. We looked at every single expense."

Now more than two years removed from the shutdown, and one year following a reopening that has included its own waves of challenges and uncertainty, Narcus is finally ready to celebrate everything that she and her fellow partners in the event business have endured and survived.

Narcus is planning a grand reopening, of sorts, on Aug. 11 called the "After Party" to fulfill a pledge she made amid the unprecedented waves of the COVID-19 health crisis.

"I made a public promise that we would have a re-launch party once it was safe to do so," she said. "I promised that everyone would be invited."

She said the "After Party" is to reintroduce the venue to Peabody residents and rekindle the excitement that came with the original unveiling of a spot unlike any in the area.

Narcus plans to bring in 10 to 15 vendors to showcase their own food, lighting, staging and entertainment specialties as well as invite many others who somehow kept it going during the darkest stretches of the pandemic.

She also wants Peabody residents to be involved as well with ticket purchases for the night of food, music and much, much dancing open to the public with proceeds going to benefit Haven for Hunger.

"We talked about doing something last summer and there was so much chaos with things getting going again," she said. "Then we thought we would wait out the fall when we were busy and plan a winter party. Who doesn't like a winter party because what else are we doing in the winter?"

Then came the omicron surge in December. Then Narcus said she dealt with her own bout of COVID-19 as a new mother in January.

But this spring she decided it was finally time to plan that party she had promised.

"It was just like: When is it going to be time to say that we're moving past this?" she determined. "When are we in a rebuilding phase and not a trying-to-hang-on-for-dear-life phase?"

Narcus said she feels like that time is now.

"It took me a while to get the plans together due to the ups and downs of COVID," she said, "and our own busy event schedule, so here we are."

Those interested in viewing the vendors for the 21+ event — and registering for a $10 ticket — can do so here.

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)