MONTICELLO — The bear skin rug on the wall, country crocks on a shelf, a solid wood kitchen storage cabinet. As you walk into South Main Events, you’d think you’ve entered an antiques store. And you would be right.

“Everything is for sale,” says Pam Foley.

But that’s not Pam’s main purpose any more.

Once “Weekend Antiques,” the former Monticello Creamery building has been reborn again, this time as a venue for Eastern Iowa musicians and their audiences who savor the old days of coffee houses, the days when performer and audience were as close to each other as butter and cream.

“I enjoyed the business, but when you’re in antiques it ties you down all weekend,” Pam says.

“I missed the music. Once it’s in you …”

Well, it’s in you.

Pam, 54, has music in her blood. Her late father, Gus Norlin, was a harmonica player of note. Uncle Harry Higgins of Walnut Creek, Calif., is in the National Banjo Players Hall of Fame.

Pam graduated from Coe College (Cedar Rapids) in 1978 as a vocal music major and for the next 20 years would sing for weddings and funerals, play guitar and keyboards and sing for pop/country bands including 15 years with Heartland.

“We played every major dance hall in Eastern Iowa,” she says, rattling off names like Matters (Decorah), Dance-Mor (Swisher) and the Red Stallion (Coralville).

“I got tired of lugging the equipment and being out late at night,” she says. “Therein comes the antiques store.”

Pam opened “Weekend Antiques” after purchasing the 1929 two-story brick building in 2001,

For four years business was grand. Then the Highway 151 bypass opened. Curious travelers who stopped no longer drove past the store.

“The new highway, it was a detriment when I had the store,” Pam says. “Now it’s a blessing.”

Since opening last fall with consistent “A-list” area performers — Bill Lee Janey of Ryan, Raldo Schneider of Cedar Falls and the Broom Street Drifters of Dubuque — South Main Events has become a destination for the twice a month Saturday evening concerts.

“They just love it because people are coming here just for them,” Pam says. “When they start, you can hear a pin drop, only to erupt into applause or a standing ovation.”

Admission is $10. You bring your own beer, wine and food. You sit on a comfy couch or at antique tables, some seating a dozen people.

From the intimate stage up front comes folk music one week, bluegrass the next, country or soft rock or blues to an audience of about 100.

“Age-wise,” Pam says, “us baby boomers, we like our acoustic music,”

With entertainment booked through the end of the year (visit  http://southmainevents.com for the schedule), South Main Events takes you back to the good old days.