Photo by Michael Baltazar of 916pix, courtesy of 8-Track Sometimes nostalgia burns brightest for those things we weren’t old enough to appreciate at the time, like those “grown-up” libations our parents sipped while we watched the cocktail party from the top of the stairs in our pajamas. For Bret Bair, 53, that sublime memory occurred in the back seat of a car in 1980—innocently enough, as it turns out. “One of the first musical moments in my life,” he recalls, “was that my parents had a gold Cadillac convertible that had an 8-track player, and they bought me the Flash Gordon  movie soundtrack by Queen.” Stroll into husband-and-wife team Bret and Karen Bair’s new midtown bar, 8-Track, which opened in July, and you’ll think you just walked onto a set for Stranger Things  or That ’70s Show. The first thing you see might be a giant fabricated 8-track tape of Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew, mounted on wood paneling next to others by Herbie Hancock, The Supremes and yes, the Flash Gordon  soundtrack, amid a riot of other throwback imagery. Pinball machines. Rubik’s Cubes. A disco ball. A pool table. There’s even a neon rendition of David Bowie as his post-Ziggy Stardust alter ego, Aladdin Sane. “It’s a mishmash of the ’70s and ’80s and an art style called Retrowave,” Bret says. Is it too meta for us to call 8-Track’s aesthetic “contemporary nostalgia for ’70s and ’80s nostalgia”? Because this is not your father’s 1980. It’s 1980 super-charged and super-channeled by contemporary conjurers like The Weeknd, whose music is heavily influenced by the Decade of Decadence and is on the bar’s playlist (along with era-specific acts like Blondie, The Police and The Smiths). Something about this double distillation makes it all work. Oversized 8-track tapes on the wall enhance the retro-cool vibe. (Photo by Michael Baltazar of 916pix, courtesy of 8-Track) The exuberant cocktail menu is printed up as a comic book, detailing the carefully curated list of libations. “It’s classic cocktails,” Bret says, “But we superjuice everything.” That means no sticky-sweet Rose’s lime juice—everything is freshly squeezed on the spot. Bar manager Mason Starbird (The Cabin, Tack Room) has put together classics like the Harvey Wallbanger—a vodka, Galiano and fresh citrus concoction that’s as fun to say as it is to drink—and the Ramos Gin Fizz, frothed with egg whites and more citrus. Bret previously co-launched the R Street music venue Ace of Spades, both Goldfield Trading Posts (one on J Street and another in Roseville) the vinyl-themed B-Side, and the retro-rustic-themed midtown bar The Cabin. When Bret and Karen bought the apartment building at 21st and P streets that once housed The Press Club on the ground floor, they viewed it as an investment property. The idea to open a bar there emerged only after The Press Club closed in 2020 (the watering hole eventually reopened in a new location last year), but then it gripped their imaginations. The Bairs hired local mural maestro Shaun Burner, owner of 1810 Gallery and one of the masterminds behind the Art Hotel and Art Street—two innovative, temporary installation projects that allowed local artists to use whole interior spaces as canvasses—to build and paint those massive wooden 8-track tapes, to splash the walls with a sprawling wraparound mural inspired by ’80s sci-fi and fantasy films like Tron  and The NeverEnding Story, and to assemble a life-size gold C-3PO, who is posed spinning tracks at a DJ station. “Obviously I was a huge Star Wars  fan as a kid,” Bret says. If you too grew up on Star Wars—or a generation later, on pop culture inspired by Star Wars—this could be just the cantina at the end of the galaxy you need. Finally, the future is what it used to be.