Top Ten Club, Reeperbahn 136: the Beatles' 1961 Hamburg Residency

The Top Ten Club was a music club at Reeperbahn 136 in Hamburg-St. Pauli, opened by Peter Eckhorn on 31 October 1960. The Beatles played 92 nights there from April to July 1961, often as Tony Sheridan's backing band. The Top Ten name ended in 1994, and since March 2025 the building has housed the Molotow club.

The move that got the Beatles deported

Peter Eckhorn opened the Top Ten on 31 October 1960 in the old Hippodrom building on the Reeperbahn. That autumn the Beatles were still booked by Bruno Koschmider at the Kaiserkeller, and their agreement to play for Eckhorn instead ended badly. George Harrison was deported on 21 November 1960 for being too young to work in a nightclub after midnight. Paul McCartney and Pete Best were arrested on 29 November, accused of attempted arson, and sent home on 1 December.

92 nights in 1961

The band came back the next spring. From April to July 1961 they played 92 nights in a row at the Top Ten, often behind the singer Tony Sheridan. Each member was paid 35 Deutschmarks a night. Sets ran seven hours on weekdays and eight at weekends, with a 15-minute break every hour, and German Wikipedia adds this up to roughly 503 hours on stage. One fan chronology dates the run from 27 March to 2 July; the count of 92 nights is the same either way.

They also slept in the building, in a cramped room upstairs fitted with bunk beds.

My Bonnie was not recorded here

Bert Kaempfert, working for Polydor, heard Sheridan and the Beatles at the club. On 22 and 23 June 1961 he and the publisher Alfred K. Schacht recorded them, including "My Bonnie", but the session took place at the Friedrich-Ebert-Halle, a concert hall, not at the Top Ten. The label credited the band as the Beat Brothers.

Is there a plaque?

No Beatles plaque is recorded on Reeperbahn 136 itself. The plaque that marks the discovery of the Beatles and Sheridan at the Top Ten by Kaempfert and Schacht is at Beatles-Platz, further along the Reeperbahn.

From Top Ten to Molotow

The club kept the Top Ten name until 1994. About ten operators followed under different names, and the moondoo club ran it from 2008 until the end of 2024. On 1 January 2025 Hamburg Kreativ Gesellschaft took over the lease, which now runs until at least 2040, and sublet it to Molotow, a live club that moved here from its previous address at Nobistor. Molotow reopened here on 28 March 2025. The main stage is on the ground floor, and the basement bar carries the name Top Ten Bar.

The half-timbered gable on the Reeperbahn front is the easiest way to pick out the building. OpenStreetMap lists the club as having limited wheelchair access and no accessible toilet, with entry from age 16.

The other Beatles clubs of 1960 to 1962 are close by: the Indra on Große Freiheit and the Star-Club memorial stone.