VOWL

Two paintings face the bar: Danny DeVito thrown into radioactive pink, and a cold-blue face with a Terminator’s exposed red eye, both signed by a street artist working as ACHE. They hang inside VOWL, a slice of the 1920s Tyler Building at 61 1/2 North Lexington Avenue that DSSOLVR, the brewery next door, also occupies. Same walls, same owners, a separate room with its own name. The brick out front is painted pink and black, VOWL running up it in tall white letters. A mural in salmon and olive climbs the stairwell, painted by Noelle Miller and DSSOLVR co-founder Mike Semenec; out back, the walk-in cooler door carries a pyramid eye and a skull over stacked whiskey barrels.

The cocktail side has its own quiet ambitions. Co-founder Vince Tursi sources the coffee behind the bar from Cooperative Coffee Roasters in West Asheville. Cocktails are not what define this room. That distinction belongs to the DJ booth. One July calendar post alone named nine separate nights, everything from a trance-and-progressive set to a neon-lit outdoor party called Raveforest Cafe. Wednesdays belong to PSK, a queer and trans dance night that relaunched here this summer. One Saturday a month goes to Club Sentimental, run by residents Brandon Manitoba and Plantmom9000. Ask what kind of bar VOWL is, and the honest answer depends on which flyer is taped to the door that week. Any given night, let the DJ decide what VOWL is this time.