Talks of GWAR getting their own restaurant had been circulating for several years, but as of the first of this year, there is now a shiny temple to GWAR, with some pretty good food to boot.
Talks of GWAR getting their own restaurant had been circulating for several years, but as of the first of this year, there is now a shiny temple to GWAR, with some pretty good food to boot.
Bob Gorman, designer, technician, and Slave Pit Master for GWAR, said the idea for GWAR Bar started long before their semi-successful Indiegogo campaign last summer.
The idea started with former frontman Dave Brockie, who’d worked with The Rappahannock’s owner Travis Croxton for some time to help develop a solid plan. One of the hardest parts was finding a location. But when 217 West Clay St popped up, they were pumped.
“It’s a cool, unique place; very intimate, warm, very GWAR-like,” said Gorman.
The venture, a 50/50 split between GWAR and several other restaurant owners in town including Croxton, was supposed to be open a while ago–but, as many know, opening a restaurant in Richmond is no easy feat.
“Things never go as planned,” said Gorman. “It was a can of worms.” The group purchased the building and all but gutted it – building new walls, among tons of other renovations. Gorman said just getting it up to code was a challenge.
Nestled in the heart of Jackson Ward, the GWAR Bar is somewhere between a GWAR museum and a local watering hole–or at least, that’s what Gorman hopes to see the spot become. Right now flying eyeballs, a GWAR boar’s head, and other pieces dot the location, but Gorman hopes to add more legendary props from previous GWAR tours in the future.
“Add some guts here, add another head,” said Gorman. “It needs a little warmth, but that’s any new establishment… Over the years, it gets more knick-knacks, and more junk behind the bar… It’s not like we don’t have a warehouse full of it.”
But don’t expect a GWAR-TGIFriday’s. While Gorman wants to put up more props, they don’t want to make it look like a yard sale. Not to mention they just rebuilt most of the building’s insides. The second floor of the building is still being worked on. However, the adjacent parking lot connected to the structure is currently open for their use.
Gorman admitted the currently sparse selection of memoriabilia, the only complaint he’s heard so far, is the result of a rushed opening. “But we’re stoked it got open when it did,” he said.
For those of you still hoping for a GWAR-dining experience, you won’t be disappointed. The restaurant serves “intergalactic gourmet junk food,” in line with the band’s space-warrior-pyscho mystique.
“My mother taught me the secrets of intergalactic cooking,” reads GWARbar’s unfinished official website. “And then I ate her.”
RVA Mag contributor William Young was at GWAR Bar opening night. He said he was really impressed by the taste of everything–ironic, considering the band is known for their tastelessness. “The decor was tasteful, for a place with bloodstains,” he said.
Young ordered pork rinds and house-made ranch chips and salsa, which he called the best he’d had anywhere.
“Being in Jackson Ward, it’s out of my traditional area of operations,” said Young. “But I found it easy to get in and out of, and well worth the trip… suspect it’ll be one of Richmond’s premiere watering holes, once it hits its stride.”
The entire operation is part of a broader plan for the future of GWAR. Gorman said Brockie and his bandmates had been trying to figure out how they could continue their music-making without exhausting themselves on tour for the rest of their lives.
So between their annual music festival, GWAR-B-Q, their GWAR Beer, and now this restaurant, there’s hope GWAR can survive.
“I think [Brockie] would be totally stoked,” said Gorman of the former frontman, who died last year. “All the things that happened prior to his passing and after his passing were about how we could grow up, and how we can sustain this thing… It’s a long-term payoff, but we need to start thinking about long-term things.”
