After 29 years, Chelsea’s legendary gay bar Barracuda is closing

Barracuda Bar, the longtime lounge, drag show stage and celebrity hot spot, will close permanently on Sunday after nearly 30 years in Chelsea.

A luxury condo construction project at the site of the massive Cinépolis Chelsea movie theater, which closed in 2023 and shares a wall with the bar, has significantly damaged Barracuda’s interior and made it “impossible to conduct business as usual,” according to a statement from Barracuda owner Bob Pontarelli.

“It breaks my heart,” Pontarelli said by phone. “There’s very little left in Chelsea now that was there when we opened.”

When it opened in 1995, Barracuda was immediately different from the city’s typical “stand-and-meet” gay bars, Pontarelli said in his statement. Instead, it was a living room-like lounge environment pieced together from furniture he and his business partner picked off the street.

Barracuda soon became a regular hangout for the Broadway community, with show promoters hosting parties and cast member performances as a way of building buzz for their new musicals, according to a 2001 article in the New York Times.

A stage in the bar featured spontaneous renditions of showtunes from patrons and stars, including Nathan Lane, Charo, Betty Buckley and Eartha Kitt.

The bar’s regular drag night, “Star Search,” was hosted by drag star Mona Foot and became a launching pad for generations of drag artists in the years before “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” including Sherry Vine, Candis Cayne and Jackie Beat.

Pontarelli’s statement, released on Facebook, sparked an outpouring of heartbreak and warm wishes from the bar’s longtime patrons, including past performers and men who met their husbands at the lounge.

William Mullin, a producer and comedian who moved to New York in 1995, ended up at Barracuda one night in the early aughts when a man at the bar caught his attention.

“They had a little glass with all these business cards that said, ‘We met at Barracuda, here’s my number,’” Mullin recalled.

The man, who apparently found Mullin annoying, gave him a wrong number. But Mullin tracked him down and they went out a few weeks later, ending up back at Barracuda for their first date. They’ve now been together 22 years.

“I still have the card and I’ll bring it out close to our anniversary,” Mullin said. “I’m like, ‘Oh hi, did we meet at Barracuda? Are you sure that’s the right number?’”

Mullin said that LGBTQ+ people today tend to meet online, obviating the need for a bar. But back in the 1990s, there was no other choice but to go out and try to strike up a conversation.

“I think that art is lost now, and it’s a shame,” Mullin said.

Pontarelli still owns two other establishments, Industry Bar in Hell’s Kitchen and Elmo, a Chelsea restaurant and lounge, he said. But a 25th anniversary party at Barracuda a few years ago made him realize how important the place was to people, and he’s saddened to have to close it.

“I don’t pretend we’re Stonewall, but Barracuda is a legend,” Pontarelli said. “It’s sad and overwhelming and rough.”