For downtown Cincinnati residents Jameson Stewart and Tomas Englert the journey from bar-back to bar-producer was a relatively quick one.
Stewart, a classically trained musician, and Englert, an artist with an architecture degree, worked together as bar backs at Blackfinn when it opened on 7th St. in early 2008. Last week, the two men opened a nightclub called Bar Sapphire within
Apsara restaurant in Blue Ash. The club offers V.I.P. bottle service, late night sushi and a stage for live music.
"It's a level of service that Blue Ash hasn't quite seen yet, something that you would find more typically downtown," Stewart said.
The bar is the first major project produced by Stewart and Englert's consulting business, SRI entertainment, they founded earlier this year. The group works almost exclusively with the owner of
The Celestial,
Mt. Adams Fish House,
Teak and Apsara restaurants developing new bar concepts, events and promotions.
Stewart, who tends more to the business side of the partnership, grew up in California and moved to Cincinnati after graduating from Indiana University with a degree in Music. He moved here for a girl, fell in love with the city, and stayed after things didn't work out with the girl. He was most recently a partner in Cold Turkey, a restaurant that opened and closed downtown in 2009.
Englert, who focuses more on the creative and aesthetic half of the operation, grew up in suburban Cincinnati and began painting several years ago after he abandoned the architecture profession. Until recently, he was a bartender at FB's.
Last weekend, Englert showed a group of paintings at the
Creative Gallery on Main Street that bluntly explore masculine and feminine concepts in a graphic, cubist style. At the opening for his show, his exuberance for the new venture with Stewart was matched only by the pulsing dance music played by a DJ in the gallery.
"We can always consult, but the ultimate goal is to have our own spots," Englert said. "We want to be the creators of them, you know - 'brought to you by the SRI group' - and whether we get there in six months, a year or two years, it'll happen."
For now, managing Bar Sapphire, which is open from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. Fridays and Saturdays, and pumping new life into bars like The Celestial's Incline Lounge will be a full time job for the two men. This month will see the kickoff of the Incline's "Summer in the City," a new jazz happy hour on Thursday evenings. Englert said he hopes the shows will attract more young professionals and new patrons to the bar.
Writer: Henry Sweets
Photography by Scott Beseler
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