The newest Quad Cities hot spot is just west of downtown Davenport, and builds on the historic building’s fire theme.
Hose Station No. 7, 1354 W. 4th St., Davenport (two blocks west of Marquette) – last used as a fire station over six decades ago – is now a gleaming new bar and live music venue. The two-story structure was built in 1905 and is on the National Register of Historic Places.
Owners Chris Rogers (owner of Quad City Restorations) and his wife, Jill Wegerer Rogers, bought the place in 2020 and spent six years turning it into a dream place that hosts DJs and concerts, with a beautiful second-floor apartment available for touring acts.
“Everything that's beautiful about this place, which is original, was covered,” Jill said in a recent interview with WVIK. “There was drop ceilings, there was drywall. Like if you come in here, all the subway tile, all the wood floor, everything was covered. The front door was covered, everything was covered.”
The couple also in 2020 bought the 1858 Abner Davison house, at 1234 E. River Drive, Davenport, formerly used for Gilda’s Club, for their private home. They also restored it, and rent out the property carriage house and a neighboring house (nine total bedrooms) as Airbnbs. From 1986 to 1997, the Davison house was the River Oaks Inn Bed and Breakfast, and in 2007 the house was deeded to Gilda's Club of the Quad Cities.
The organization decided in 2020 that their resources were better spent on establishing programs at local hospitals instead of maintaining the house.
Chris Rogers converted the second floor of Hose Station No. 7 as a comfortable, spacious apartment for use by visiting acts. He was first shown the former fire house (last used as such in 1963, and last occupied by a custom motorcycle shop) in 2020, as potential office space for his business (which focuses on roofs and siding).
“I looked around, it had drop ceilings, the floors were all nasty, all the beautiful subway tile was covered. So like, it's just tough to see,” Chris said on July 10, 2026, noting he bought it from Tom Roederer, who owns a lot of property in that area, and went on to invest $2 million in its restoration.
“He said, I don't believe you can do it, but if you can, I'll sell it to you. So that's what happened,” Rogers said. On the upper floor, formerly the firemen’s bunkhouse, the original fire pole was kept, and the new layout has lights above it, carpeted sections in the floor that can be opened to show the pole down to the first floor.
“What we've done is just like revive what the historic part was,” he said, including putting a new red epoxy surface over the main concrete floor. “We didn't tear any of that stuff down. We tore all the stuff that covered all of it.”
Chris is a 54-year-old native of New Orleans, and “I've always had deep appreciation for history and architecture,” he said, noting they moved to the QC from Des Moines seven years ago.
“I've always been intrigued and fascinated by firehouses. I've had family in the fire community, firefighting community, relatives that have been firefighters.”
“Our office was over at the One River Place, right across the street from the Gilda's Club,” Rogers said of East River Drive. “So I would see that property all the time. And then Shawn Langan, I became fast friends with Shawn that sold me this. So he said, hey, it was September 11th, 2020. And he said, there's that house across the street from your office, it was going up for sale and I can get your foot in the door early, earlier than it was supposed to be for sale.
“It's a beautiful home, but it just, you know, they're a nonprofit, so they didn't have a lot of money to keep up with it,” he recalled of the Realtor saying of the main 4,500-square-foot home. Rogers plans to host the nonprofit’s “Diamonds & Divas” fundraiser there in the near future.
Realizing a longtime dream
As for the old fire house (which is on the National Register of Historic Places), “When this opportunity came along, I've always dreamt of something like this,” Chris said. “And we've been involved in the music business down in New Orleans. And we just wanted to bring live music that we enjoy here that normally wouldn't stop in the Quad Cities. You know, they'd skip over.
"And like, I've sold it to all my friends that are coming to play here. As you look at a map and basically the Quad Cities is right dead center in the middle of every major city.”
“All the agents, all the managers, and the musicians alike, obviously, they like to have new stops on route that they never would have, 'cause it's more additional income,” Rogers said.
“In this day and age, they don't sell records anymore. So they need to make money touring. So if we can provide them with another opportunity along the way, then it just makes sense for everybody. And we've been such live music fans. I've been to every jazz fest throughout my entire life.”
They bought a food truck, to be run by Skinny’s Barbeque in Muscatine and Cord Kleist, who is famous for his Texas-style pulled pork (winning top pulled pork in the state from Iowa Pork Association).That food truck will be open during the Hose Station events, which each will have varying cover charges.
“He does very well out there, and he wanted an opportunity to come to the Quad Cities, and we already had so much going on that we were just like overwhelmed already,” Rogers said. “We couldn't have a commercial kitchen here, so that was like our way of being able to sell food.
"So once we're— we're now we're up and running, Cord’s gonna bring the truck. He's been kind of going around the Quad Cities and sharing the love of our food elsewhere. And then now that we're back, we're going to be open here.”
It will be Skinny’s Fiya Truck, to fit the fire theme.
“The reason why I say Fiya is being from New Orleans, it's like a Mardi Gras Indian tradition, and like when we, instead of saying awesome, we say fire,” Rogers said. “Something's great, it's fire. So that's kind of where that came, that idea came from, and we told Cord that, you know, if we're gonna do it, if we're gonna do it with you, we're gonna do it as a fire truck food truck.”
He also has a retrofitted old front of a 1972 Mack fire truck (found in Louisville, Ky.), that serves as the DJ booth.
“I found it in the junkyard. The owner cut it off, cut off the cab, and then it took us a year and a half to restore it. And now that's the DJ booth,” Rogers said.
DJ Otto (from New Orleans) co-hosted an event Friday night, July 10. Opening weekend last weekend featured the band Nth Power, with acclaimed drummer Nikki Glaspie, who’s toured with Beyonce.
“It’s absolutely beautiful, amazing,” the DJ said of Hose Station. "We don't even have a place like this back home, you know what I mean? Really, really nice.
"Similar spots, but not like this, not the care, you know. He took the restoration seriously,” Otto said.
“I love it,” said general manager Esmeralda Bernal. “It’s awesome. I think the timing of it, everything is very on point and on brand, and the place I feel was meant to be.”
Rogers has Chrissy Boyer (of All Sweat Productions) as Hose Station sales manager and event coordinator, and they hope to be part of this August’s Alternating Currents festival.
The venue will be open first Thursdays to Saturdays 6 p.m.-2 a.m., with live music and DJs, and concerts will move the ground-floor furniture next door to a warehouse that Rogers plans to eventually host the larger live-music venue.
In back, they have an outdoor patio and parking for up to 80 cars, Rogers said. He’s not sure how long the ongoing construction work on West Fourth will take, but praised the city’s new alderman for the neighborhood, Paul Vasquez.
“He's amazing. He has been absolutely incredible to us,” Rogers said. “Every single time I call, he answers. He calls me at night, sometimes 7:30 at night, to just discuss the neighborhood and things that are going on. And like, he made it. He's making us feel like we matter. It’s not something that necessarily, that we've expected, but it's a blessing. It's a blessing. Let's just say that.”
Commitment to firefighters
For a recent ribbon-cutting, Hose Station invited retired Davenport firefighter Tony Ruckoldt to do the honors.
“He’s a legendary retired fireman. He was a captain for Davenport and he's 82 years old. We've become very good friends with him, him and his wife Jayne Ruckholt,” Rogers said.
“He's introduced us to a lot of the people in the fire department. And when some of them came for the grand opening, it just meant something. It means more when people that are involved in the fire community, that firefighting community, that embrace us as well because we're trying to do that too.”
A big upcoming concert will feature Ivan Neville, son of legendary New Orleans artist Aaron Neville, and his cousin Ian, on July 31 and Aug. 1, Rogers said.
Hose Station has a capacity of 185, and the planned warehouse venue should be able to accommodate over 400, he said.
“That space is going to be for the concert area, and then this side will be a bar area, but it'll be connected,” Rogers said. “So that'll be open, no tables here, chairs or anything. It'll just be an open space, and then that will put a stage in there, and then that'll be where the concerts happen.”
To see before-and-after photos of the Hose Station transformation, see the gallery below.
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