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Seven years ago, Daniel Sartain’s daughter gave a restaurant name to her play kitchen that the Bar Virgile owner vowed one day to make real.
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Next week, Saint Mars will open its doors.
Saint Mars will open in the former Annexe space down below Bar Virgile in downtown Durham. Annexe closed last month after six years of glitz and glam, pink neon and tiki drinks.
The vibe of Saint Mars will be decidedly more chill.
“The interior is vastly different,” Sartain said. “The whole pink and green neonish vibe of the 90s and late 80s is gone. It had its time, but now it’s sapele wood and black walnut.”
Saint Mars will be a cocktail bar and “listening room,” Sartain said, with the sound system playing exclusively vinyl records. The floor has been carpeted and sound panels and clouds added to the ceiling and walls, aimed to wrap guests in a moment.
With Saint Mars, Sartain hopes glowing phone screens will be a rarity, and people will spend some time with the space and each other. Saint Mars plans to be a full record bar in a shuffle playlist world.
“If someone stops in for 90 minutes, they’ll hear two records in their entirety, there will be conversation pieces, some deep tracks, some dead air,” Sartain said. “We need to rethink this whole instant gratification thing.”
On a given evening, expect to find records in conversation with each other, maybe a 70s rock night with Bob Seger on one turntable and Tom Petty on the other. Sartain’s collection of about 1,000 records will supply the tunes.
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“Anything from jazz to old school hip hop to rock n roll to indie rock and electronica,” Sartain said. “We’ll have a little bit of everything.”
The cocktail menu will steer away from the tiki drinks of Annexe towards stiff sippers like a Black Manhattan and a Martini served with olives, almonds and giardiniera. Bar Virgile will supply the snacks.
The flip to Saint Mars happened in only about five weeks, with co-owner and design lead Nellie Vail inspired by the chillest of all vibes: the library.
“She said, ‘Let’s go with a bit of a library feel,’” Sartain said. “It’s cozy and dark and moody, there’s more elegant lighting.”
There will be five tables and a row of barstools in the main room, plus a lounge of plush couches and swivel chairs, Sartain said.
Look for an opening sometime the week of Aug. 17. For an opening announcement, keep your eyes on instagram.com/saintmarsdurham.
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