By 1999, ‘Mythos is the nucleus of uptown’s night scene’ in Charlotte.
This week, we’re going back in time for a moment ahead of Friday’s throwback reunion party to Mythos, the nightclub that opened in 1993 and changed the course of Charlotte nightlife forever.
On Monday, we took you back to Dec. 24, 1993, when uptown Charlotte was sparkling with the magic that was the new nightclub, Mythos. (And likely also sparkling with some Christmas decorations, if we’re guessing).
By 1999, however, Mythos was a fixture in uptown’s nightlife scene. It so happened to also be the year I turned 21, so the memories of that whole block are impressionable — Mythos, Cosmos, Bar Charlotte, Have a Nice Day Cafe, the list goes on ... I can close my eyes and go right back there.
The collective memories are so strong that Mythos owner Andy Kastanas is taking us all back to the ’90s and early ’00s with his upcoming reunion party, which will be Friday, Feb. 16, 2024. And to get ready for the party, we’re going back in our time machine, that is — the newspaper archives.
We stole the password from our boss’s desk for The Charlotte Observer’s archives, and we found this story, published Sept. 13, 1999. It captures 1990s uptown nightlife perfectly:
From the archives: Boogie Knight rides uptown
Published: 9/13/99
Byline: Pam Moore
In the days when downtown flat-lined after 5 p.m. and Tryon Street was a lonely alley after dark, a guy named Andy Kastanas, who loved to spin records, put a dance club right where everybody said it would fail.
He called it Mythos, which sounded kind of mysterious and cool, but in truth he got the name off a wine bottle label.
His idea, stoked with some other people’s money, was that Mythos would be very cutting edge, very Not Charlotte. It would have a distinct club ethos: Dress up, don’t expect top-40 dance tunes and don’t come if you can’t handle gay people, straight people, black people, white people and very loud, progressive dance music. There would be nothing like it uptown. Then again, there was nothing uptown, except for some mighty big office towers and a stray bar here and there.
That was 1993. Now Kastanas has three uptown clubs and 150 people working for him. Mythos, once a lone outpost at Sixth and College streets, is the nucleus of uptown’s night scene. College Street, as an observer quips, is living up to its name.
Mythos was always designed to cater to an urban, edgy, “alternative” crowd, but Kastanas and his handful of investors are practically mainstream now.
Even banks are lending them money. In 1995, they bought the big brick warehouse that’s home to Mythos. That made them landlords to other bars that followed Mythos to the block: Bar Charlotte and Have a Nice Day Cafe.
Their second venture, a club called Cosmos that shares space with Mythos, usually has crowds lined up down Sixth Street on weekends. And their newest club, a spicy salsa and merengue concoction called Salamandra, is one of uptown’s latest hot spots. Kastanas and partners hooked up with members of Charlotte’s Presley family - of Coyote Joe’s fame - to open it last spring.
What’s happened since Mythos opened is in part a tale about how a city develops, block by block. At least 10 restaurants have popped up within a couple of blocks of Mythos on all sides, and more are coming. And with the new Seventh Street Station parking garage - the one that lights up and giggles - the alley between Mythos and the deck has the look of a carnival on weekend nights, with hot dog vendors and revelers staying into the wee hours.
Everybody seems to know Kastanas now - Andy Kastanas, the pope of College Street, the guy who gave people something to do uptown after dark.
When he pops into Mythos on a Friday, dressed in his all-black club clothes, “Hi, Andy” follows him everywhere he goes. Patrons love to chat him up and introduce their friends to him. Women with blond hair seem compelled to start a conversation with him at the bar.
Andy Kastanas is a big guy. Not tall, but big. Big hands, big heart, big belly laughs, which sometimes erupt out of nowhere in casual conversation. He’s Greek, and he’s into Greek things: food; family; trips back to Athens, his hometown; relaxing on the island of Mykonos. Like his dad told him: “Americans live to work. Greeks work to live.”
When he was 12 or 13, Kastanas’ parents sent him back to his native Greece to live with relatives. That was when music became huge in his life. He’d ask his mom to buy top-10 hits and mail them to Greece. He found his calling: DJ.
“I had all the latest music from the U.S. and everyone would always ask me to come play,” he says. “I like to entertain people. That’s where I get my kicks.”
Kastanas has been a DJ for almost 20 years now. He still spins at Mythos on Saturday nights, midnight to 4 a.m.
He played all kinds of clubs - places on Charlotte’s fringes such as The Odyssey and Dixie Electric Company.
A guy named Gus Georgoulias, who came to Charlotte from Athens in 1976, used to go hear him at the old Park Elevator club. Then Gus proposed, “Why don’t we do something?” It took years to find the right place, but Kastanas was determined to go uptown. Banks were putting up big buildings. The Blumenthal Performing Arts Center was opening. Spirit Square was having cool concerts. Gus, his brother George and another investor backed him.
“We saw what was happening and we wanted to be in the middle of it,” Kastanas says.
If anything, he’s an accidental businessman. “Art is everything. Music to me is art,” he says, adding: “I like to look around and see what the new trends are.” He often travels to New York, Amsterdam and other places to check out music he can bring back to Charlotte.
Noah Lazes, who ran Fat Tuesday and World Mardi Gras until CityFair was demolished, is president of ARK Group and for years has put on many of uptown’s street music festivals. He’s known Kastanas for years and admires him for being something of a purist - even if it means sacrificing business.
Lazes, who’s coordinating the upcoming Carolina MusicFest, is big on bar crawls and promotions that allow people to get into all the uptown bars for a single ticket price. Kastanas was reluctant to include Mythos in the promotions.
“I wanted the masses and the mainstream and Andy wanted this distinct clientele,” Lazes says. “His specialty has always been music. ... He’s light years ahead of anybody else in doing cutting-edge music.”
Lazes adds: “Really, it’s the only nightclub in Charlotte where someone has thought out the lights and sound. He has always had a show. He’ll pay drag queens to walk around the room just so people go, ‘Wow.’ He’s done a good job of encouraging people to dress nicely, to dress different. He encourages individuality. He’ll tell you he’s educating the Charlotte market. That’s why he brings in these big DJs that nobody knows.”
True, says Kastanas: “I didn’t want to compromise our concept and our principle just to make money. In the long term it would alienate the people who would come to Mythos. Because I know this crowd, and they would say, ‘Hey man, you sold us out.’ I could do wet T-shirt contests but I don’t do promotions like that.” But hey, he adds: “I’m not stuck up.”
Kastanas and his investors have put at least $600,000 into Mythos since it opened, including $350,000 for a big makeover last year that added even more body-invading sound.
“We’re making decent money here,” Kastanas said one afternoon at Cosmos, shortly after a sales rep from Creative Loafing had popped in to drop off several “Best Of” awards for Mythos and Cosmos.
But Kastanas says he went furthest out on a limb with Cosmos, which opened in late 1997. With its hard-to-miss spiral motif at Sixth and College, Cosmos is a study in eclecticism: an airy, open room downstairs with a circular bar, an art gallery, an upstairs cigar lounge and balcony for dining, and a menu that runs from sushi to tapas.
“We took a big risk,” he says. “But it was the right timing. It all goes back to what we’re trying to do as a group, to bring some new experiences to the city. The city’s growing up. And somebody needs to take that risk and say, ‘We need some culture.’ “
One of the biggest innovations at Cosmos was Latino night on Thursdays. When people started lining up down Sixth Street, Kastanas got the idea for Salamandra. The Presleys offered their building on East Morehead, former home of the Cellar, and things clicked.
Kastanas doesn’t have anything definite in mind for what’s next. Maybe a restaurant.
“To keep bringing the latest and newest to town” — that’s the plan, he says.
“He’s certainly a pioneer. He was way out in front of everybody else,” says Rob Walsh, who as head of Charlotte Center City Partners spends a lot of time figuring out how to develop uptown.
Walsh says he’s been amazed at the pickup in activity around Mythos and Cosmos since he moved here three years ago. It’s infectious, he says: Nearby restaurants like LaVecchia’s are serving late-night dinners. Mert’s Heart and Soul stays open until 3 a.m. to cater to the club crowd. Hot dog vendors hang around well past midnight.
“One of the things we could criticize ourselves for is we almost plan too much and almost sanitize and sterilize the city,” Walsh says. “One of the good things is what you see there - I wish we had a name for it, something like Entertainment Alley. It’s taken on a Beale Street feel.”
“It’s what we need here,” he adds. “It’s the energy we need.”
Andy Kastanas
Born: July 11, 1960, in Athens, Greece.
Moved to Charlotte: 1968
Education: Olympic High School; business courses at UNC Charlotte; culinary degree, Central Piedmont Community College.
Family: Wife, Lesa; one daughter, 7.
Car: Black Honda CR-V.
Fave records of all time: Prince, all cuts; David Bowie, “Space Oddity”; Grandmaster Flash, “The Message”; Depeche Mode, “Everything Counts”; Frank Sinatra, “One for My Baby.”
What others say about him: “He’s always around people.” - Jeff Jennings, director of operations for the three clubs.
More Mythos nostalgia
We’ll be here all week, friends. Come back to CharlotteFive.com for more reports from The Charlotte Observer’s archives as we ramp up to the Mythos reunion:
Monday: “New club a sleek addition to uptown’s nightlife,” published Dec. 24, 1993.
Wednesday: “Mythos: 10 years of having last laugh. Club owners started entertainment district with 1993 opening,” published April 16, 2004.
Thursday: “Mythos opened door for uptown nightlife. Club’s closing marks the end of an era in city’s cultural evolution,” published June 13, 2004.
