How bizarre: This Wilmington venue was in the Cargo District before it was cool

These days, the sprawling Cargo District is one of Wilmington's trendiest spots, with people flocking to the sleek bars, breweries, restaurants and shops clustered on, near and between 16th, 17th, Castle and Queen streets.

One place in the area, however, predates the Cargo District by a decade and a half or more. This year, the Barzarre at 1610 Castle St. — a gritty, longtime haven for eclectic music, edgy comedy, sideshow-style performances and an offbeat, unclassifiable clientele that has taken to calling itself The Barzarrean Horde — celebrates 20 years in business.

By most measures, that would make Barzarre a Wilmington institution.

"The people that come here really care about this place," said Drew Ellis, who books much of the Barzarre's entertainment and also tends bar there. "It's one of a kind."

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Certainly, one would be hard-pressed to name another place in Wilmington remotely like the Barzarre, or even one with comparable offerings. In recent days the entertainment lineup has included heavy metal and electronic music as well as the touring, sword-swallower-featuring Roadside Sideshow, plus belly dancing, a drum circle, the Laughs of Love "queer comedy showcase" and an assortment of "flow artists" (juggling, spinning, fire arts and more). On June 29, the Barzarre hosts Midgets with Attitude, a touring wrestling show.

The Barzarre is one of the only places in town to offer hookahs for smoking, they serve a mean taco and their relaxing oasis of an outdoor patio is one of Wilmington's truly hidden, mostly unknown gems.

"We just keep finding these crazy interesting things, the weirdest stuff I can find," said Barzarre owner Sebastian "Bash" Gomez, a trained fire artist and juggler who's fit and trim with gray stubble and short, spiky hair. "All the weird (stuff) you heard about us is probably true."

A Barzarre is born

It all started back in 2004, when Gomez and his girlfriend at the time, a belly dancer who was in the hookah business, moved to the East Coast from Venice Beach in California, where he used to frequent a freak-show-themed rock club in North Hollywood called C.I.A., or the California Institute of Abnormalarts.

His first stop was Charleston, South Carolina, but he felt like "Charleston was blown out," Gomez said. "People in Charleston were always like, 'Don't go to Wilmington. Those people are weird up there.' I was like, 'I'm gonna check it out.'"

Gomez said he also considered moving to Asheville because "Asheville is like the weirdo mecca, right? But I didn't really want to fit in there. I'd just get lost in the wash."

Once he was in Wilmington, "I kept passing by this place," he said, which was previously a Jamaican restaurant. "Then one day I saw a 'for rent' sign. … I called and I put on my fake showman voice, like, 'I got this great concept, I need a month and a half free rent.' And they were like, 'OK.'"

And so the Barzarre was born, although for its first 16 years of the life the venue was called The Juggling Gypsy.

The initial name came not only from Gomez's background as a juggler and fire artist, but from his idea that he would only stay at 1610 Castle St. until the landlord raised the rent "and then move from place to place," he said. "But then the weirdos started coming in almost immediately. And the landlord saw that we were doing well, so he tried to raise our rent. … So I had to come up with a plan."

Gomez bought the building in 2006, "And then I was like, 'Well, we're stuck. We're in it now.'"

Twenty years in, the Barzarre has "maximalist" (Gomez's word) design and decor that includes a life-size metal belly dancer on the front door, a planter in the shape of a giant metal head near the entrance and stickers on most every surface. A broken guitar sits atop a shelf of dusty board games, while the Barzarre's patio features one table in the pattern of a ouija board, a letterboard that commands, "Make it weird" and a large sign from the venue's days as The Juggling Gypsy.

Asked to describe his clientele, Gomez said, "We don't have a demographic. It's more like a psychographic."

"Just people who are really open to talking to strangers," he added. "Coming up with games and crazy ideas. If you ever came to one of these drum circles on Tuesday, there's kids dancing and, you know, people that are like 70-80 years old."

Steph Stigma is a Wilmington musician and comic who often talks on stage about her experiences being a trans person. Stigma said that when she moved to Wilmington seven years ago, the Barzarre "felt instantly welcoming. I’ve since forged countless friendships and so many memories there."

Stigma hosts the Monday open mic at Barzarre, but she's also "hung out overnight for a ghost hunt, put on all-day hippie music shows (and) played chess outside until 4 a.m." Plus, "I met my current girlfriend there on Goth night."

Gomez, who lives in a house two doors down from his business, said he was inspired to make the name change to Barzarre, which he said is better for social media since it's shorter, in 2019 after getting "hate mail" from people who consider calling the Roma people "gypsies" an ethnic slur.

"Then again I've had several Roma people in here that were like, you know, 'If you hate gypsies, you don't put 'Gypsy' on your sign,'" Gomez said. "Then we went through some slow times and people were calling us The Struggling Hippie."

Gomez put up the Barzarre sign without telling anyone in advance on Jan. 1, 2020. Then COVID hit, and "all of a sudden there were bigger fish to fry," he said.

Paradoxically, the pandemic proved to be a pretty good time for business, and the Barzarre was one of the first venues in Wilmington to do both outdoor and masked shows once the lockdown ended.

These days, "it's like a whole new era" for the Barzarre, Gomez said, which is now in the Cargo District whether anyone likes it or not.

"We're having our best years ever. I can't necessarily attribute that to the Cargo specifically, it's just the town (growing) in general," Gomez said. "As far as the Cargo District itself, I mean, I don't mind them. It's just an evolution of things you can't change."

Certainly "there's a lot more pedestrian traffic" than ever before on that part of Castle Street, Gomez said. While he was being interviewed for this story, a polo-shirt-and-shorts-wearing couple who looked closer to the Cargo District's demographic than to Barzarre's heavily tattooed clientele walked through the front door for an afternoon beverage and a couple of tacos.

"It's hard to swallow," he added. "We have been a fringe place and now, all of a sudden, right in the center of the action. People were like, 'You know, now you gotta clean up your act.' I'm like, 'Why?' We are the antithesis to the classic brewery style."

This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: The Barzarre on Castle Street celebrates 20 years in Wilmington, NC