On this whole ongoing cave dig, I just made a rando connection from the way back of my memory.
There used to be a bar on U-Street, near Shaw, in Wash. DC called Bohemian Caverns. It was right down the street from the Prince Hall Masonic Temple. Typical Jazz bar, was there for decades, but it had two strange aspects to its history I noticed at the time.
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If you went down to the basement, it was very eerily and strangely decorated as a cave, frequently closed for private events.
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Right on the door, it was posted that the venue was used by the local Black Masonic chapters as a meeting place and special events. This always struct me as odd, considering the Prince Hall M. Temple just a few blocks over. That aspect of the clientele was also notably aloof to the rest of us that just liked booze and jazz. I'd even go as far as calling them a bit "strange."
Its one of several things that's getting me to startin rethinking "cave" symbolism on the whole.
Few bits of sauce, but its easy to dig on:
https://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/news/article/13047674/bohemian-caverns-to-close-legendary-u-street-jazz-club
http://thenoirfactory.com/blog/aint-party-like-gangland-party/