Barracuda Lounge, or simply Barracuda, is a gay bar in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. Opened in 1995, the bar is known for its nightly drag shows. It is a sister establishment to Industry, a nightclub, and Elmo, a restaurant. Barracuda is home to "Star Search", the longest-running bar show in New York City, which began in the early 1990s and may have served as an inspiration for RuPaul's Drag Race. In the 1990s and 2000s, Barracuda was a popular celebrity hangout, and it was frequently the site of promotional events for new music and Broadway plays. While closed for much of 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the venue underwent a major renovation. It reopened in June 2021. Critics generally praise Barracuda for its intimate, relaxed and entertainment-focused atmosphere, which was unusual at the time of its creation, and some credit this with revolutionizing the concept of gay bars.
History
Drag
Barracuda opened in Chelsea in October 1995. Its owner, Bob Pontarelli, founded the bar with his business partner, Stephen Heighton, who died in 2011. The pair were fans of drag and wanted to showcase that art form at the new establishment. In an interview with The Advocate, several of Barracuda's earliest performers said that it was "the first performance- and drag-based bar in Chelsea" and one of the first venues in New York to offer one-woman shows to drag queens. It was also among the first to feature a drag show every night.
Pontarelli and Heighton had previously co-owned Crobar, a venue in Manhattan's East Village, where a weekly drag show called "Star Search" began in 1991. They subsequently moved the show to Barracuda, where it still runs. Nashom Wooden, who performed in drag as Mona Foot, hosted "Star Search" in the 1990s, and Mimi Imfurst hosted it in 2011. Sherry Vine, Candis Cayne and Hedda Lettuce began their drag careers in the show, which, according to The New York Times, "preceded RuPaul's Drag Race by more than 15 years and probably served as one of its inspirations". It is currently the longest-running drag show in New York City. Wooden (as Mona Foot) also hosted the first annual edition of the Glam Awards at Barracuda in 1997. The event, a ceremony à la the Oscars for the queer nightlife community of New York, is now typically held at larger venues.
Jackie Beat, Peppermint and Miz Cracker also started drag at Barracuda. Vine, who worked at the bar for 20 years, had her own show there until the early 2010s, when she moved her performances to Industry, Pontarelli's nightclub in Hell's Kitchen. Cayne was at Barracuda for 10 years. Prior to winning season 8 of RuPaul's Drag Race, Bob the Drag Queen was also a fixture at the bar. In the 2010s, Tina Burner, who went on to appear on the thirteenth season of Drag Race, hosted "Star Search" on Thursday nights. , the competition's host was Kizha Carr.
Celebrity hangout
Through the early 2000s, Barracuda was a popular destination for high-profile names and promoters in the entertainment industry. A 2001 New York Times article said: "[T]his neighborhood gay bar keeps drawing celebrities, who often appear free, along with record executives, Broadway show promoters and perfume designers in search of the elusive holy grail of cool." Pontarelli and Heighton also hired A-list talent to perform on their stage. Guests included Eartha Kitt, Mackenzie Phillips, Rue McClanahan, Charo, Jennifer Coolidge, Johnny Knoxville, Tonya Harding and many Broadway stars. Peter Galvin of Atlantic Records stated that music industry executives saw Barracuda as a strategic place to promote new music, and his company "organized more than 25 events at the club, like an appearance of Duncan Sheik". Similarly, Broadway promoters took advantage of Barracuda's atmosphere and reputation as a "cool and hip place" to generate publicity for plays; they frequently arranged for cast members of their shows to appear at the bar.
A 1999 episode of Sex and the City contained a scene filmed at the bar.
Actor Nathan Lane used to visit Barracuda weekly. Graham Norton, who dated Tina Burner, stated that the venue was where the two met. While attending Vine's show one night, Betty Buckley delivered an impromptu a cappella performance of the song "Memory" from the musical Cats, which was then in its first run on Broadway. Additionally, "[t]here was [a] fabled lounge appearance of Australia's Queen of Yodeling, Mary Schneider, who presided over the club until 4 a.m. after singing a powerful version of 'The William Tell Overture.' The former television evangelist Tammy Faye Bakker Messner came calling... to promote a documentary about her life."