Jerry,
We had a similar club in Morgantown, WV while I was in graduate school. 'The Last Resort" offered its performers a really good hamburger and a soda (no beer at the club itself) for each set you did. Between the burgers at TLR and my job delivering 'Phantom Pizza" (where we took home any not delivered by the time the dorms closed) and my $90 a month from the GI bill, plus the pathetic graduate assistant stipend, I managed to stay sheltered and fed, and kept new strings on my guitar (1942 Gibson J-35). But like Jerry, did it our of love for the music, and for the friends I made through the music.
Padre