Crocodile Rock

History

Crocodile Rock Cafe, at 520 W. Hamilton Street in Allentown, opened in July 1999 in the former Eastern Light furniture store; Julian Lennon played the sold-out first night. Owner Joe Clark’s multilevel club hosted national tours — later accounts name Snoop Dogg and early stops by Taylor Swift, the Jonas Brothers, Twenty One Pilots, and Wiz Khalifa — and at its peak sold about 50,000 tickets a year. It lost its liquor license after a 2009 shooting outside the club, wound down by 2015, and was demolished in 2017 after City Center Investment Corp. bought the site. (The Morning Call, July 31, 1999 and May 9, 2025; lehighvalleylive, Sept. 14, 2017.)