According to a lot of people I have talked to, the plan has been to move it, but this plan hasn't been confirmed. I honestly hope she does move it, so at least there still is a place for local artists and musicians to share what they do. It's probably been a full year since I've talked to Mara who runs it; I should just pick up the phone and call her, but I'm not sure if she'll like talking about it.
Knowing the people there, I foresee a bunch of "benefit" gigs in the near future to work on this. They've done this before when a nearby indoor skate park got flooded out and needed to be gutted and rebuilt inside.
This source shows the business making between a half and a full million in revenue per year.
This one says only $420K, but this only counts the bar, since the restaurant has been under separate accounting since Tommy left in '08. Knowing them, it would not surprise me if they reported 420 as a
joke, since although I don't support this, Cedars has sometimes been a place to smoke marijuana behind the back door where we loaded and unloaded. It also says 11-50 employees, which sounds right. I would hope this income and group of employees is plenty motivation to keep it going somewhere. The revenue is extremely likely higher but only partially reported. Almost all transactions there are cash. Nobody ever cut me a check for any of the countless gigs I played. It was always cash under the table.
[...which I had to report separately because otherwise I would be audited, since it helped make me able to pay up front for my undergrad/bachelors degree classes. Paying for college with limited income sets off red flags for the tax guys. I reported most of that kind of income as "freelance musician" (in addition to other jobs held at the time).]
If Cedars moves, it will never be the same. It'll take a lot of adjustment for everyone, but I'd still give it a try. The original location puts it perfectly between downtown and the Youngstown State University Campus, and that will be hard to match.
edit - I should add, thank you both for showing interest. This place is a major part of my life, and it's a tough situation to take in. I hope that Mara does something that works out to keep things going. She owes it to her dad, who in my opinion virtually single-handedly created the best reason to visit Youngstown.