Seattle’s Beloved JarrBar Is on the Brink of Closure

JarrBar is in hassle.

The tiny bar close to Pike Place closed down all of a sudden this week, and launched a web based fundraising marketing campaign in an try to scrape collectively $133,000 so it will probably reopen. Proprietor Bryan Jarr cites rising meals and liquor prices, elevated hourly wages, a divorce, and a few “well-intentioned investments with the mistaken individuals” amongst his current monetary troubles.

“The total quantity will get me re-opened,” he says, “and pays off the very actual debt that’s incurred. Again hire and taxes and a few of the key payments I’ve simply been floating. After which, if we get to the total aim, it offers me somewhat cushion, so I will pay an worker.”

JarrBar faces distinctive difficulties as a result of the area is just 470 sq. toes. The entire room contains simply 20 seats, and every one counts. With such a low cap, the bar fills up shortly on busy nights, and Jarr finally ends up turning individuals away. “However the gradual nights are deafening,” Jarr says. “Sure nights, I’m solely making $11 an hour, working the bar myself, so there’s no means I may pay another person $21 per hour [the minimum wage in Seattle].”

The bar’s enterprise mannequin wants to alter, Jarr says. If he will get the cash, he’s contemplating some artistic concepts, resembling a hybrid membership mannequin for regulars, who would get some perks for becoming a member of. Talking of perks, GoFundMe donors are being supplied a tiered choice of rewards for his or her contributions, resembling customized tapas with drink pairings for 4 (on the $600 degree), a curated JarrBar reward field ($666), or a endlessly seat on the JarrBar bar ($9999).

Meg van Huygen

Meg van Huygen

Jarr is a fourth-generational Seattleite with an extended affiliation with Pike Place Market. He was a coauthor of the 2013 ebook Within the Kitchen with the Pike Place Fish Guys, and opened his tiny Spanish/Basque/Catalonian/Portuguese cantina two years later. “I did a visit to Spain and Portugal, actually specializing in how they handled preserved seafood. I fell in love with the little tapas pintxo bars all by way of Spain and Portugal, and I had an concept of one thing I needed to do at house round that,” he says. The main target was initially on sherry and imported tinned fish, lengthy earlier than the tinned seafood craze had blown up within the U.S. Jarr has seen his namesake bar by way of simply shy of a decade, lengthy sufficient to see it tackle an idea — and clientele — of its personal.

Within the video appended to the GoFundMe marketing campaign, Jarr tells a tragic however more and more acquainted Seattle story. “JarrBar was capable of survive kicking and screaming, popping out of Covid, [but] since then, income ranges haven’t returned to pre-Covid ranges,” he stated. In particular person, he provides that JarrBar has been struggling since early 2024, and admits he’s partially guilty. “I had an funding I did at one other spot that I obtained ripped off on,” he says. “I didn’t defend myself properly sufficient with a handshake deal. I perceive that this can be a large ask, much more so to assist me come again from one thing that’s my fault.”

To date so good: The GoFundMe had raised over $20,000 as of Friday morning. Jarr additionally hopes for a busy season this summer time with the inflow of cruise ships and vacationers, to offset the deficit and preserve the bar in biz.

However there’s nonetheless rather a lot driving on the GoFundMe marketing campaign, and Jarr will get emotional when he speaks of the assistance — and compassion — he’s acquired already.

“You may really feel the love of individuals, once they hear the information, the place they’re like, ‘No, no, no. This may’t occur to JarrBar.’ I’m very inspired and grateful from what the GoFundMe has achieved to this point, and I attempt to remind myself that, if I’m going by way of this, then I’m in all probability not alone right here.”

“It’s gone on for 10 years, proper?” he provides. “I need it to go on at the very least one other 10.”