Queer-friendly music venue and more: Petra’s Bar in Charlotte is full of life

If there are no bands in town for the evening, you might just unknowingly pass by Petra’s Bar in Charlotte’s Commonwealth neighborhood around Plaza Midwood. But if there is music, it will be impossible to pass by Petra’s without wondering what is going on in there.

It looks a little like this: the energy of a ragtag crowd bubbles inside and spools out into the front patio. All walks of life chitchat or sip pomegranate margaritas from the back patio Tiki bar or the main stage bar under the hum of live music. Inside, heads are banging.

Petra’s is, first and foremost, a music venue. But with a stop-in on a Monday night jazz jam or a peek into the hidden art gallery, visitors will discover some deep Petra’s lore that proves it much more than just a place for live music.

“It’s a Swiss Army Knife bar … there’s space for a lot of different creative communities to have their say … we have drag shows, a house music dance party, karaoke nights,” Nicholas Holman, Petra’s gallery manager, told CharlotteFive.

Holding space for community

These events like Jazz Nights, Sapphic Nights, TuTu Tuesdays, Karaoke Night and Hazy Sundays mold and transform Petra to become a specific creative community’s space for a time.

“Our karaoke night, which is queer-leaning … it’s their space for the night,” Holman said.

It’s clear there’s an underlying queerness at Petra’s, with the occasional burlesque or drag show attended largely by LGBTQ+ communities. Current co-owner Perry Fowler said “This bar was founded on that … A straight cis white bar is kind of scary. Very macho. We are not that way.”

This venue was founded by, owned, and operated for many years by gay community members in Charlotte, first Connie Huddleston, then Jerry Brown, Dean Freeman, and Curtis Tutt — the latter two still having majority ownership.

Petra’s was named after original owner Huddleston’s partner, Petra.

This bar has taken on many iterations over the years, as many businesses do to stay relevant and adapt to the changing tides of their neighborhood, especially in developing Plaza Midwood. Petra’s started as a lesbian bar in 2007 and then transitioned into more of a gay bar in the 2010s. However, after that, the owners “wanted to branch outside of the gay community,” Fowler said. “I guess for whatever reason they weren’t feeling it was sustainable.”

The “whatever reason” is probably the perplexing lack of openly queer spaces in Charlotte, and the fact that before 2014, gay marriage was still illegal in North Carolina.

Claire Lucas, who, alongside Evan Torres, recently founded QueerCoded, a bi-monthly queer dance party centering queer folks of all kinds in Charlotte, said businesses and “people are afraid to be polarizing … they don’t want to step on toes.”

To be openly queer is “Unfortunately … a brave thing these days,” they said. “You would think it would be normal, but honestly, the culture here still feels very rooted in white supremacist culture and a patriarchal culture.”

‘Queer bars are dying. Especially lesbian spaces.’

This is particularly true in the South, where queer rights, and more specifically, queer BIPOC rights, are in constant threat, explained Lucas.

“In everywhere across the country, queer bars are dying. Especially lesbian spaces,” Lucas said.

Lesbian bars and Charlotte’s explicitly gay clubs can be counted on one, maybe two, hands — Bar Argon, Hattie’s, Chaser’s, and soon-to-be-reopened Scorpio, to name a few.

Writer Annie Keough wrote a comprehensive exploration in Queen City Nerve of sapphic spaces like Petra’s sapphic nights and other queer-inclusive groups, like Lesbian Friends of Charlotte and Lez Party.

The spots do exist, but many of them, like Petra’s, are slightly under-the-radar queer spots, where longtime Charlotteans are in the know, but maybe not newcomers to the city.

As a queer organizer themself, Lucas would like to see more open queer businesses, owned, operated by and inclusive of folks beyond just gay, cisgender white men, as queerness encompasses a much broader scope than that. With issues of racism and transphobia happening in gay bars in Charlotte, it’s clear that the city is “not inclusive enough…it’s not diverse enough,” said Lucas.

Without safe queer spaces, “it can feel really isolating,” said Lucas. “Especially for younger queer people, it’s important to have that community and connect with people in queer spaces … that’s a very transformational time.”

The lack of fully representative, fully inclusive queer spaces is one reason many queer people leave Charlotte, said Lucas.

That’s why highly-visible events like Petra’s sapphic nights and drag shows are essential for Charlotte’s culture at large.

That’s why both artistic and queer spaces, like Petra’s, are necessary to challenge some of Charlotte’s dominant power and commercial structures that inherently marginalize queer people in this city.

Fowler said that Petra’s as a longstanding staple in Charlotte’s queer community is an “authenticity thing … if you try to do it, it’s gonna come off as fake and pretentious or that you’re just trying hard … You just have to be welcoming and accepting … you have to make yourself available.”

Petra’s small stage attracts crowds

Coming up on 8 years of ownership now, Fowler is at Petra’s every day where, if he’s not organizing one of the above events, he’s keeping the stage booked, using a formula he calls the “touring sandwich … a local opener, touring band in the middle and then a local headliner,” Fowler explained. “If it’s good and groovy, I’ll probably book it.”

Groups like Dougie Poole or Reyna Tropical have performed on the small Petra’s stage and attracted a sizable, even traveling crowd.

While he himself no longer tours, “town to town, night to night, if I can provide a place where touring bands can feel a little bit at home, I’m proud to be a part of that,” he said.

Both Holman and Fowler started at Petra’s like most of the other employees: working the door, a casual gig that would grant them flexibility to tour and play their own music.

“What defines Petra’s is that everyone who works here is an artist or musician or both,” Holman said. While it may not have been in the original plan to stay at Petra’s and work their way up, they’ve both felt pride for their work and the communities built that keep them around.

“I used to think that working at a bar and a venue was not a real job,” Holman said. “But then, it’s like, we are hosting maybe the most enjoyable part of someone’s week … Art and music is what people who are working nine-to-fives are looking forward to the whole week. It’s their escapism.”

He’s right. All week, I was looking forward to popping into Petra’s to see the local opener for the evening, a newer band called Ali Forrest. It was their first time performing at Petra’s. The group’s songs were a mix of folk, indie-pop and some catchy twangy country (what Forrest calls girly-pop twang) that’ll be on her upcoming record dropping July 12.

Watching the show live, it was clear that the crowd was there to support Forrest and “the boys,” as Forrest called her bandmates. The energy between the performers and the audience was a very direct exchange of sorts. Forrest would announce to the crowd that “this one’s for the bisexuals” and a few folks would clap and cheer. “It felt like a living room,” Forrest said.

Caleb Whitlock, the drummer for Forrest and a local music producer, said Petra’s is “a nice intimate space … you’re very close to the audience members, so you get that immediate feedback.”

Whitlock also recognized the importance of medium-sized venues like Petra’s, especially for just beginning musicians. “Artists are playing their first or second shows here … it’s a great place to build community, see what’s going on in the scene, and you don’t really get that at larger venues. You need these medium-sized venues like Petra’s to keep the local scene growing.”

‘Dive art gallery’

Another way that Petra’s shines light on blossoming artists is through their “dive art gallery,” as Holman called it. Enter Petra’s, walk to the left, and you’ll find a black room dotted with paintings, pictures and mixed-media art from a collection of new and local artists.

Every first Friday, this group art show introduces new artists to each other and provides a confidence-boosting, jumping-off point for local creators, Holman explained. Keep an eye out for occasional open calls on Instagram.

Another event locals really look forward to occurs every Monday: The Bill Hanna Legacy Jazz Session, where past students of Charlotte Jazz legend, Bill Hanna, groove to some jazz on stage as a weekly ode to their former teacher.

“Oh, Monday’s awesome,” Fowler said. “Having a place where jazz … and hundreds of brilliant musicians in Charlotte … can have a foundation to stand and have a light shone on it … it’s a really good feeling.”

According to Fowler, the energy of the people that come in and pack this room each Monday “just kind of gets seeped into the walls and into the wood.”

Whether it’s Jazz nights and live music, themed events or queer dance parties, it’s clear they’ve each had a hand in shaping Petra’s. As Fowler said, they’ve each somehow been seeped into the walls and wood of Petra’s over the past 17 years.

With Commonwealth growing, what does Petra’s future hold?

Fowler knows the apartments down Pecan are coming, as is the deluge of larger corporate restaurants and bars. He has faith in Petra’s regulars and a flexible mindset that’ll allow Petra’s to continue to shapeshift to meet the neighborhood’s needs, especially if that means helping pay the rent.

“We don’t do things the best way or perfect way,” Fowler said. “We just do it our way.”

Well, what is the Petra’s way? It’s the way of local bands, of budding artists, of Charlotte’s queer community, of veteran jazz musicians who shaped the music scene of Charlotte.

Petra’s Bar

Location: 1919 Commonwealth Ave, Charlotte, NC 28205

Instagram: @petrasbar

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