New upscale bar El Sid opens in APEX complex

EVERETT — Cocktail bar and coffee house El Sid is the latest addition to APEX Everett, the downtown historical building that also houses 16 Eleven steakhouse, an event/concert space and a collection of graffiti art.

APEX owner Johnny Carswell’s unique complex also has a newly installed sign. A retro, art-deco-style neon sign with APEX in big letters on the outside of the three-story brick building was installed just days before the El Sid opening on Aug.9

Carswell spent $5 million on buying and renovating the downtown building at 1611 Everett Ave., which was the Everett headquarters for the Knights of Columbus when it opened in 1921. It later housed a Masonic Temple, a dance club called Club Broadway and an off-track betting parlor.

The off-track betting parlor closed in 2019, Carswell said. He said the building had been vacant for four years when he purchased it April 2022 for $2.2 million.

Carswell said he waited to open El Sid, because he wanted the 16 Eleven steakhouse bar to develop its customer base. The restaurant opened in August 2023.

“I wanted 1611 to get its own bar crowd without having to compete within its own building,” he said.

The lounge, which features specialty cocktails, will also be a coffeehouse during the day. It has an elegant 1920s Spanish Moorish feel, but with a punk rock twist.

A caricature of Sex Pistols rock icon Sid Vicious, who died of a heroin overdose at the age of 21, hangs on the wall behind El Sid’s small stage.

It features Vicious with a backdrop of the English flag.

It’s a parody of the famous Sex Pistols album cover, “God Save the Queen,” which featured a defaced image of Queen Elizabeth II. At the time, people considered the album quite controversial when it was released in 1977 with lyrics attacking The Queen and the British monarchy.

Carswell said he came up with the name of the cocktail lounge, El Sid, by meshing the names of Sid Vicious with that of El Cid, the Castilian knight and ruler in medieval Spain.

Carswell grew up in Southern California enjoying punk rock and wanted to be playful in the interior design of his new lounge. But he views El Sid as a sophisticated place to enjoy a cocktail, whether someone is a punk rock fan or not.

“It’s not a punk rock bar, it’s a high-end cocktail bar that has a punk-rock nuance to it,” he said.

Carswell said punk rock bands won’t be playing regularly in El Sid in the future, but Aug. 9 was an exception.

The opening night of El Sid featured an invited group of 150 patrons listening to Annabelle Lwin of Bow Wow Wow and Cherrie Currie of the former band, The Runaways.

Lwin is the effervescent lead singer Bow Wow Wow. The group has been playing music since the 1980s. The Runaways lasted from 1970 to 1979, but Currie has continued to perform. She is embarking on a farewell tour in Australia in September.

One attendee on opening night, Erryn Guilfoyle, said she loved the music. She intends to be a regular, noting that the atmosphere was very classy and it was just two blocks from her house.

Guilfoyle said, as a younger woman, she would come to the Everett Avenue building with friends to frequent Club Broadway, enjoying jazz, contemporary music and country on different levels.

“We all hung out here, and now its evolving into something just as great,” she said. “Johnny has turned this into something we can definitely relate to as adults.”

Carswell said Club Broadway closed in 2013.

Carswell originally eyed the Everett Avenue building as a museum for his large graffiti art collections, which numbers more than 1,000 pieces.

He grew up fascinated by graffiti and the rebel artists who used spray paint as their medium. Carswell started collecting in the early 2000s because he was concerned that graffiti was being painted over and lost forever.

As he started renovating the building, Carswell, a Snohomish resident and building contractor, said he got to know Everett and saw new businesses and apartment buildings opening downtown.

“I thought to myself, this is not the Everett I remembered,” he said of the city 20 years earlier. “Everett was a place where dreams went to die.”

Carswell said he wanted a gritty city to house his art collection, but at the same time, came up with the idea that maybe he could create a unique venue now that Everett was evolving.

“I wanted to roll the dice and see if we could do something here,” he said.

The graffiti art is still a large part of APEX Everett, even though the building houses various venues.

Two hundred pieces of the graffiti art are scattered throughout the Apex building, including at the 16 Eleven steakhouse, the event/concert space and at El Sid.

Carswell’s daughter, Gloryanne “Baby G” Carswell, the curator of the graffiti art, offers free personal tours of the collection by appointment. Other times, Johnny Carswell gives the tours.

He also hopes El Sid will help revitalize Everett nightlife.

For now, El Sid will close at 11 p.m. seven days a week, but that’s not the ultimate idea.

“Our plan is to stay open late because we’re really trying to attract the nightlife back to Everett,” he said.

Carswell said he has been talking to other downtown Everett bar owners about a coordinated plan to keep the lights on longer.

“It’s our job to be available so that when people come here at night, we’re open,” he said. “Because if someone is going to make the drive to come here, and we’re shut down at 9 p.m., it’s a disappointment.”

Carswell calls it a “vicious cycle.”

“If the bars don’t have anyone coming in, they close early,” he said. “But then who’s going to come in if you know the place has already gone to bed.”

Randy Diamond: 425-339-3097; randy.diamond@heraldnet.com