Dance, get weird: Surreal nightspot Bizarre Bar coming to downtown Vegas

Having just picked up some new decorations for his new bar, Tim Kam switches to the passenger seat so he can talk about going from Odd to Bizarre.

“The word I’m looking for is ‘third space,’ ” he says from his car on a recent weekday afternoon, explaining the vibe of one of the downtown Arts District’s most anticipated club openings. “A home away from home.”

That’s what the Vegas nightlife veteran aims to create with Bizarre Bar, his latest endeavor, which occupies the space that formerly housed music venue/nightclub Swan Dive (1301 S. Main St.) and is scheduled for a soft launch in early March.

Kam is best known for overseeing the evolution of the Fremont East District’s Oddfellows into a playfully offbeat hot spot, a self-anointed “dance club for people who don’t like dance clubs” with its artfully gritty decor and come-as-you-are, anything-goes vibe.

Now, Kam is looking to transform Swan Dive, where he was a minority owner, into something both fresh and a little familiar in Bizarre Bar, where he plans to incorporate elements of Oddfellows’ often nostalgic dance party programming and communal atmosphere into a newly designed space.

“I just saw that there wasn’t really a space out here like the one I created at Oddfellows,” he says. “What I’m going to do at Bizarre Bar is actually really similar, except now it’s my thing.

“I feel like this is an opportunity to actually create something in my own vision. It allows me to kind of do what I want to do,” he continues. “I wanted to do things to create community and make people feel safe, feel more comfortable. That’s kind of like what my goal is with this project.”

More dance parties

While Swan Dive was primarily a concert venue with a busy schedule of shows ranging from metal to indie rock to EDM and more, Kam intends to focus more on dance events during the weekends, while continuing to host live acts from time to time.

“Being a part of Swan Dive, I saw a lot of the struggles of just being strictly a live music venue. It’s tough,” he says. “It’s tough with the ticket sales; it’s tough getting artists that people want to go see. You lose a lot of money.

“However, I still want to do the live music and performances and stuff like that, but I want to do that more so on the weekdays,” he adds. “And then on the weekends, it’ll be more of the consistent dance parties. I want to keep that consistency — and there is really no dance club in the Arts District, in my opinion.”

The bones of the venue will largely remain intact, with some additional flourishes — “I’m getting something built there that needs a permit, so that takes a little time with the city,” Kam notes — but he’s reimagining its layout.

“There’s going to be a bar area, a dance floor area, and then we have two patios,” he says. “One of the patios on the weekends will be another area for different music, different kinds of dance parties.”

As for the decor, Kam favors a surrealist aesthetic with a Salvador Dali-esque bent.

“I have a bunch of art that I’m trying to curate, and that’s going to kind of set the tone, hopefully, for local artists to contribute,” he says. “I don’t want to just have, like, all kinds of different art in there. I want to have a specific style.”

A community project

Kam took the reins on Swan Dive last fall from owner Harvey Graham, who owns Oddfellows as well, and is planning on opening a new incarnation of Swan Dive also on Main Street.

He ran the venue until its final show in late December and has been working on Bizarre Bar ever since, bringing his vision to life with other Vegas art scene notables like poet James Norman and Spckrft Studios owner Noel Calizo, who’ve been helping with carpentry and construction.

“I want to definitely try to include as many people as I can in this project to make it feel like a community project,” he says.

With a little over a month until Bizarre Bar’s planned opening, Kam is in the homestretch of a place he wants to feel like home for everyone.

“It’s exciting and scary,” he acknowledges. “Some of the scary points are like, ‘Are people gonna understand it? Are people gonna show up? Am I gonna be able to provide the people who work there a livable wage and allow them to be happy and thriving?’

“But the exciting part is being able to do what I want to do, to humanize the experience of going into a business,” he continues. “It’s not just a business; it’s a community space. It’s something I can express myself with. I’m hoping it’s successful, of course, but the success comes from like, ‘How can I help our community?’ That is really what drives me.”

Contact Jason Bracelin at jbracelin@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0476. Follow @jasonbracelin76 on Instagram.