Claude’s Comedy Club & Bar opened in South Philadelphia on South Broad Street at the beginning of July.

Since then, it has hosted some combination of open mics, showcases and headliners every night. Open seven nights a week, until midnight from Sunday through Thursday and until 2 a.m. on Friday and Saturday, with a 100-seat showroom, Claude’s is an intimate neighborhood bar where you can find some laughs.

It was started by a Jewish Philadelphian, Reid Benditt. And like the NJB (Nice Jewish Boy) that he is, Benditt, 43, named the place after his mother, Claudia.

Claudia Benditt was also the loyal Philadelphia Jewish Exponent reader who reached out to the publication about the new club. As a result, her son also referred to her as his “press agent.”

“My mom’s been a big part of my life. My parents have always been good to me. It was actually her birthday present,” Benditt said.

On March 25, 2025, the son gave his mother an envelope with printouts of the logos he had designed.

“She’s always been a very selfless person. That’s how the room works. The room gets out of the way so comics have a place to shine,” Benditt said.

Benditt grew up in the Merion Park neighborhood in Lower Merion and had his bar mitzvah at Beth David Reform Congregation in Gladwyne. He also went on a Birthright trip, played in the Maccabiah Games as a golfer and watched enough “Seinfeld” to later finish second in a trivia contest about the show at a local bar.

When he looks back on his bar mitzvah experience, he realizes that it could be the premise of a comedy movie.

“I had the flu, and I was going through puberty at the same time. When I had to chant Torah portions, it was rough,” he recalled. “I think I even tapped out about halfway through. On top of that, one of the cool girls got half the girls over to her bat mitzvah the same day.”

Benditt survived that experience to earn his degree in marketing from George Washington University in 2005 and build a career as a business creative.

Between 2010 and 2025, he held director-level roles with FCM Hospitality, a Philadelphia company that manages bars and restaurants; the Electric Factory, the live music venue in Callowhill now known as the Franklin Music Hall; The Bowery Presents, a New York City-based concert promoter; and the Anchor Rock Club, Atlantic City’s independent concert venue just off the boardwalk.

He promoted comedy shows on the side throughout that time. He also had an independent interest in the craft dating back to his childhood as a “Seinfeld” lover.

But as PhillyVoice reported in a July article about the opening of Claude’s, Benditt really started to tap into his interest after getting laid off from his job in 2013. He came up with the idea for Claude’s when he started taking sketch comedy classes at Philly Improv Theater in Rittenhouse Square.

Later, when he was laid off during the pandemic in 2020, Benditt and some sketch comedy friends launched a satirical newspaper, the Philadelphia Jabroni. Finally, after finishing a free business class at Temple University, Benditt began looking around for a possible space for a venue.

“I didn’t know how to start a small business,” he told the Voice. “It was a long time coming between that class and opening our doors.”

Benditt has lived in Passyunk Square in South Philadelphia since 2010. He said he wanted to open Claude’s because Philly only really had two other comedy clubs, Helium in Rittenhouse Square, which has a showroom capacity of about 250, and Punch Line Philly in Fishtown, which is run by Live Nation.

Both are bigger, more corporate venues. What was missing was the neighborhood comedy club.

So, he found a former consignment shop with nothing but cement floors and a little bit of drywall. It was “basically sort of a raw basement space,” Benditt said.

“I fell in love with the space,” he told PhillyVoice.

And the love has only grown.

“We make it intentionally comfy, cozy. I’ve had people compliment everything from the bar area to the bathrooms,” Benditt said. “The comics love the showroom too. They’ve just been saying how much it’s needed.”

During his time in comedy, Benditt has watched talented comedians leave the limited Philly scene not just for bigger cities, but sometimes for smaller ones like Washington, D.C., and Baltimore.

He hopes that Claude’s will fill the space between Helium/Punch Line and bar shows.

“Looking around at other cities, cities that are smaller than us, D.C., Baltimore, they have more comedy venues than we do,” he said. “I’ve been putting on comedy shows for 10 years. A lot of them have moved up. There’s room for working-class comedians, like the middle class of comedy.”

In its first month, Claude’s is doing all right. Some nights have seen shows with 20 people in the audience. On other evenings, crowds have exceeded the 100-seat capacity.

The Spanish-American comedian Carmen Lynch headlined one show. “Saturday Night Live” writer KC Shornima headlined another.

“We had a good opening,” Benditt said. “But I’m not going to lie. The summer is the summer. People are away.”

Nonetheless, the Upcoming Shows page on claudescomedy.com reveals that the club’s schedule is almost booked out through December. It also includes well-known comics like Lukas McCrary, Umar Khan and others.

Tuesday nights, though, are reserved for open mics. The 7-9 p.m. stretch is available to comics of all ages. At 9 p.m., the mic is only open to comedians 21 and older.

“The open mic is just a staple of any solid comedy club. That’s something we’ll have on there forever,” Benditt said.

An experienced marketer, Benditt is trying a little bit of everything to book and promote shows.

He knows comics in Philly; he sends around a booking form to “anyone who asks”; he uses paid and organic social media posts; he sends out a weekly newsletter; he puts out posters in the streets; and he works with influencers and media outlets.

In recent weeks, agents have started to reach out to him, instead of the other way around.

“I think we booked eight new shows in the past week or so,” he said.

Benditt estimates that he’s taken one total day off since the club opened. Both were half-day increments. But he’s not complaining. He wants to be consumed by this project.

“Since I took that sketch comedy class, I was basically doing music venue marketing as my day job and comedy on the side. It’s been a long time coming that they converge. It’s satisfying,” he said.

Benditt has done the business plan. He has a staff in place. He also has the money to operate.

Now it’s just a matter of “finding our stride” and “becoming a staple in the city,” he said.

jsaffren@midatlanticmedia.com