After weeks of buildup, U Street area nightclub DC9 reopened Friday without incident.

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Inside the club, the mood was celebratory, but still relatively low-key — lots of regulars catching up with each other as well as the bartenders and other club employees they hadn’t seen since October.

Most of the patrons echoed the same sentiments, over and over: They were glad to see the club reopen, and were looking forward to frequenting the nightspot once again.

"DC9 is, by far, my favorite venue," said McKee Floyd, who lives in Adams Morgan. She was a Liberation Dance Party regular before the club closed for more than two months. "Some of my best memories are here — I’m excited to be back."

The club had been closed since Oct. 15, when D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier ordered it temporarily shuttered following the death of 27-year-old Ali Ahmed Mohammed, an Ethiopian American man who lived near Wheaton and was known to spend his nights at various bars on 9th Street. Lanier told the media that day that Mohammed had been killed in a "savage beating" that amounted to a case of "vigilante justice." He had allegedly thrown a brick through the front window of the nightclub, and five men who worked at DC9 were initially charged with chasing, tackling and beating him to death. But other witnesses claimed Mohammed had merely been restrained, and those charges were later dropped by the U.S. Attorney's office, citing a lack of sufficient evidence, though leaving the door open to re-file them at a later date.

There was no organized protest on 9th Street NW Friday night, commonly known as Little Ethiopia. Roger Gordon, who'd been involved in organizing a Nov. 8 protest and march against the decision to drop all charges in the case, said he'd asked everyone to stay away Friday night.  "Nothing good would come of that," he says.

The downstairs bar was lively, and the gathering upstairs felt like just another regular edition of Liberation Dance Party, with DJ Shannon Stewart spinning indie rock and electronic music, and people drinking and hitting the dance floor. Most of the scheduled events for the next couple of months are similar DJ nights and dance parties; Steve Lambert, booker for DC9, as well as Rock & Roll Hotel and Red Palace, re-iterated what he told the Washington Post earlier this week — that live shows could return to DC9 as soon as March. National acts are booked several months in advance, local acts often a couple of months in advance, Lambert said, so he's looking ahead to the spring.

“I want to bring this place back to exactly where it was, before the unfortunate incident,” he said. “We were peaking in terms of talent coming through and ticket sales. I have national booking agents telling me their bands love playing here and they want to come back. Right now I’m holding the keys to when that happens."