On nights out in Baltimore, Darius McKeiver would often find himself at the same two LGBTQ-friendly bars, Leon’s and The Eagle. He and his friends kept coming back to the same question: “Why aren’t there more spaces for us to go to?”
“We love those places, but why do we only have two options?” McKeiver wondered. “It would be nice to switch it up every now and then, you know?”
Soon, the idea of opening a bar became a running joke among his social circle. Now, it’s becoming a reality — for the next month and a half, at least.
On Friday evening, McKeiver and four of his friends and fellow artists will open The Club Car, a “queer cocktail and cabaret” designed to look like a vintage train car and serving a menu of drinks and entertainment. The pop-up will take over a space at 12 W. North Ave. in Station North that was the longtime home of bar and performance venue The Windup Space and later Rituals, another bar.
The Club Car, open 4 p.m. to 11 p.m. on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays through Feb. 25, will add another much-needed gathering spot for the city’s queer community, which has seen nightlife options dwindle. Over the past decade, Baltimore has lost several staple LGBTQ-centric venues, including the Hippo, Grand Central and Flavor.
“Over the past five, 10 years, there’s just been such a lack of queer brick-and-mortar spaces, and it’s been continuously a conversation in the queer community,” said McKeiver, a drag artist who performs under the name Stealya-Manz Blue.
The Club Car is one art-filled answer to the problem. McKeiver and collaborators Ryan Michael Haase, Kitt Crescenzo, Joe Pipkin and Stacey Antoine have decked the venue with pleated blue fabric, retro seating and mood lighting to create the atmosphere of a luxurious old-school train car. On the walls is artwork from Alix Tobey Southwick: Friday night’s pop-up launch will also serve as the opening reception of Southwick’s show, “Bad Casting and Other Questionable Decisions.”
The cocktail bar will take advantage of The Windup Space’s black-and-white chevron-patterned stage to host everything from drag shows to musical acts and stand-up comedy. Opening night will feature music from Ben Shaver and Amber Woods, at 8 p.m.
Crescenzo developed the drinks menu, which features classic cocktails like martinis, Manhattans and gimlets. Other options have themed names like “Riding the Rails” (your choice of liquor and a mixer) and the “Loose Caboose,” a rotating special.
The North Avenue space has already been commissioned several times as a pop-up venue, hosting a John Waters-themed bar called The Flamingo during the Queerscape festival in September as well as a “Dasher and Dancers” cocktail pop-up last holiday season. The temporary bars got a boost from the Central Baltimore Partnership, which has coordinated about $10,000 in grant assistance to various pop-up projects over the past four years, according to Jack Danna, the partnership’s director of commercial revitalization. Haase, the artistic director of Station North’s Stillpointe Theatre, has been involved in several of the pop-ups.
Danna said the Club Car pop-up “captures of the optimism” of a Station North Arts District in the process of revitalization. On the same block, Mobtown Ballroom will soon open in the former North Avenue Market space — the first step in a broader reimagining of the building, which takes up the majority of a city block, under the guidance of a new arts partnership led by developer John Renner. Another pop-up, The Parlor, has transformed a former funeral home into a hub for artists.
Pop-ups like the Club Car offer “the opportunity to see and experience the future of the market as an art, food and drink, and entertainment hub that celebrates Station North’s DIY culture,” Danna said. “It allows us to generate the all-essential foot traffic that gives the streetscape vibrancy and a welcoming environment.”
If all goes well, McKeiver and his Club Car co-founders hope their bar can become a permanent one, contributing to the ongoing rebirth of the arts district.
“We know what it takes to put on a show,” he said. “Think of this as an extended run, but the ultimate goal is to be around forever.”
