A model stands in bra and underwear atop a podium , drink in hand, her body a sea of greens and blues that have been painted on by professional artists. One room over, couples straddle pottery wheels to see who can sculpt the tallest phallus (the winner will be crowned with a necklace of pink Mardi Gras beads.) Two teams of artists swarm around 8’-by-8’ canvases on the back wall, going head to head in a mural battle to win the audience’s favor.
If none of those options had suited you last week at Reason & Ruckus––the Poughkeepsie bar where these activities were taking place—you could have turned your attention to the live music, a game of “Frick Frack Blackjack” (in which players bet anything but money), pool, the vintage arcade games, or any of the 103 pieces of artwork on the walls. A love-themed, Valentine’s weekend collaboration with Heartbreak Hotel, the two-night event was Reason & Ruckus’s largest function to date, and involved more than 60 local and international artists that both supplied the artworks and participated in the festivities.
Calling Reason & Ruckus just a bar sells it short. The multi-room, 5,000-square-foot venue functions as both art gallery and neighborhood gathering place, hosting a couple events per week. Co-owners Ovid Reichelt and Meaghan Myers see Reason & Ruckus as a space to “shake things up and see Poughkeepsie thrive.”
What they hope to do is bring as many people together as possible in an area that often feels transitional. Reason & Ruckus aims to be a platform for creatives, a population in Poughkeepsie which, according to Reichelt, has historically been “very small, but very powerful.” Myers adds, “The name speaks to the duality of us as co-owners and the business in general. We really like to have a good time, but there’s a lot of reason behind what we’re doing.”
Reichelt feels that Poughkeepsie remains overlooked despite the population influx in the Hudson Valley, but he’s seeing exponential growth in the number of artists in the area, many of whom are New York City transplants. Amidst this growth, he wanted to highlight all of the work that’s already happening in the area and provide a spot where both longtime residents and newcomers can land. “The space needed to be a home for creatives,” Reichert says, “where they felt that they could be themselves and do things that mattered.”
Reichelt originally opened Reason & Ruckus under the name Temptation three years ago, bringing Myers on as co-owner after hearing her father, a family friend, talk about her bartending skills and passion for the trade. During the pandemic, Myers had lost her job at a cocktail bar in Hudson. Upon joining Reason & Ruckus as co-owner and bartender, she became “swiftly instrumental,” according to Reichelt.
Myers believed in his vision of bringing local artists into the bar. Something of a serial entrepreneur in the local arts scene, Reichelt had also been operating an art gallery, Cryptic, which he opened in 2018. Reason & Ruckus and Cryptic were just a few doors away from one another on Main Street, at 305 and 358 respectively, and artists began coming from the gallery to the bar until it seemed redundant to have two spaces. So Reichelt closed down Cryptic and opened Smoke Signals in its place in 2021, a tattoo shop that triples as an art gallery and event venue.
Last week’s double-header was the first arts event that Reason & Ruckus had put on since the closing of Cryptic, and they closed the bar for two days to prepare. “We’re here 80 to 100 hours a week,” Myers says. “We don’t have a lot of money, we don’t have backers, it’s just me and Ovid. We clean the bar, the bathrooms, we do everything.” They don’t just do visual art either, Reason & Ruckus has hosted drag shows, food pop-ups, and disco nights.
Most days end with the bar crew staying after shift to enjoy each other’s company. When they turn in for the night, Reichert and the bar manager head upstairs to their rooms, across the hall from William Teran, co-creator of Heartbreak Hotel, and artist Annabelle Popa, who helped design the show’s layout, murals, and graphics and body-painted one of the models. (Five of the eight apartments above Reason & Ruckus work to support it in some capacity.)
“I hate repeating ‘community,’” Reichelt jokes, “but there’s no other proper term for what we’re building here. The people who come, this is a second home for them. It’s about being a home for a lot of the people that might not be able to gravitate towards the status quo.”
Reason & Ruckus is open Tuesday through Saturday at 305 Main Street in Poughkeepsie. The artworks from the Heartbreak Hotel event will be at Reason & Ruckus through March 11.
I really enjoyed this article! It is informative yet written with the same style as its’ subject. I have been to Reason &Ruckus many times and it is wild and crazy, to say the least! Great food and drinks, the vibe is young and hip, and I really respect the work they do with the community and local charities. I love the Chronogram too! Keep up the great coverage of the local area!