Rock ’n’ roll, beer and taxidermy: Inside Vegas’ coolest new bar
The room’s alive with dead things.
Let your eyes adjust to the darkness — it takes a few seconds — and the first thing you see to your immediate left, after you pass the suit of armor brightened by a sparkly scarf and the sign that reads “We’re all mad here,” is a pair of gorgeous stuffed peacocks mounted on the wall above the fireplace, their regal-looking, blue-green plumage swirling with whirlpools of color.
A wild boar’s head with long, protruding tusks hangs nearby among other taxidermied creatures; a lush boar hide mounted on plywood rests on a table.
It’ll be affixed to the ceiling soon.
All around us, dense green faux foliage dangles from bookshelves, doors and seemingly every other available surface like an overgrown garden of the imagination.
Russell Gardner gazes up at the three stained-glass doors he recently suspended at an angle from the rafters, creating a cathedral-like effect, and explains the inspiration for the front portion of his new bar/music venue/emporium of clown paintings, ceramic cats, skulls and dismembered baby dolls in glass containers.
“This room is kind of meant to have the feel of what you see in all those postapocalyptic movies where there’s like the place of great knowledge, like an old library, but it’s all overgrown,” Gardner says, beard as thick as the Detroit-style pizza he’s become known for at one of his other bars, the Red Dwarf, and which he’ll also soon be serving here. “There’s green everywhere. There’s animals flying around. It’s like the safe haven for that. This is kind of that space.”
Welcome to the Grey Witch.
Now let’s get weird.
Seeing Red, going Grey
It’s like their home away from home — literally.
“It’s funny, people are like, ‘Where did you find this (stuff)?’” Gardner says, flanked by wife, Natalie Burge, the entertainment director for his properties. “Well, garage sales, but also some of it is just from our house.”
“I like to say that if you’ve ever been to our house, it totally makes sense,” Burge says of the décor. “We want to be able to work and celebrate in spaces that are comfortable. Well, what should be the most comfortable space, but your sanctuary, your home?
“Russell is very tiki, very punk rock,” she continues, “and then there’s this broad, who’s not tiki, but definitely goth and rock. I like my taxidermy, and I like my crazy rock ’n’ roll art.”
Tiki-meets-punk rock is the general motif of the Red Dwarf (1305 E. Vegas Valley Drive), Russell’s first spot, which the longtime beer-and-restaurant veteran opened in 2022 as an extension of his living room, basically.
It quickly became a locals favorite with its heterogeneous mash of thatch-roofed booths, walls lined with old local show fliers, voluminous craft beer list scrawled in glow-in-the-dark chalk and guarded by a pair of skeletons, those Dole Whip cocktails and, perhaps most notoriously, that aforementioned pizza, made from a personal recipe of Gardner’s.
“I’ve been in the restaurant business my whole life,” he says, “so I just decided I want to make Detroit pizza, and I’m going to make it the best I can. And it turned out great.”
After Gardner launched jazz-and-blues lounge Fat Cat in the Downtown Grand in 2023, a Realtor friend hipped him to his latest property at 722 W. Sunset Road in Henderson, which housed all-ages nightclub Ozone back in the day.
“He was like, ‘You should probably come check out this space,’” Burge recalls of the Realtor’s advice. “‘It’s a little wacky — and that’s exactly why I think you’ll pick it.”
What’s a grey witch, again?
According to folklore, it’s a spellcaster who utilizes both white and black magic, straddling the line between the helpful and the harmful, embodying both.
“We wanted some sort of creature, like an object or person, that we could make a theme with,” Gardner explains. “With the grey witch, we found the whole balance of good and evil, light and dark. We’re like, ‘That’s it. Perfect.’”
The Grey Witch’s interior design reflects its titular sorceress: The front of the place is brightly illuminated with polished wood tables to dine at and will be all-ages until 10 each night.
“Fairies enchant this area,” one butterfly-adorned sign announces.
The back of the bar is decidedly shadowier, with more gargoyle statues, less greenery.
“You walk in, and this is kind of that white, light, whimsical side of the bar,” Burge says from the front of the room. “And then you cross over into that side, and it’s the dark and the macabre.
“Once you spend some time in the space, you’re like, ‘OK, cool, I get it,’” she continues. “‘Lots of things growing, lots of colors on this side. You go in there, and it’s very dark and potion-y. And skeletons.”
Multigenre music venue
Like Gardner’s other bars, the Grey Witch will host live bands, but on a larger scale with an adjoining music venue separate from the main room.
Garage rock fireballs the Detroit Cobras will christen the club on Tuesday during the Grey Witch’s grand opening, and a host of other touring acts have been booked, ranging from hardcore troupe Scowl (July 16) to death metallers Devourment (June 19).
“This is not just a space for rock ’n’ roll and metal,” Burge says. “This is absolutely a space for country. The majority of genres, we’re interested in.”
There will also be a craft cocktail room called Dark Arts opening later in a hidden part of the building.
“You’re spending 10 minutes with your bartender, crafting and talking about the kind of beverage you want,” explains Burge, a lively presence in a Joan Jett T-shirt and leopard print leggings. “You’re not telling me you want an old-fashioned — you’re telling me that you feel sparkly and that you are feeling zest and you want the essence of mahogany. And then they’re gonna pull something together for you. I think that’s something that we haven’t necessarily been able to achieve at our other spots because of the space for that.”
Taken all together, then, the Grey Witch represents a new spin on what’s quickly become an old favorite.
“It’s taking what Red Dwarf is, that comfortable kind of punk rock/tiki (bar) and saying, ‘OK, how can we do that and change it maybe just slightly?’” Gardner says.
“It’s not like we’re switching from a quarter to a nickel: It’s still a quarter,” he adds. “It’s just the other side of it, you know?”
Contact Jason Bracelin at jbracelin@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0476. Follow @jasonbracelin76 on Instagram.
