“You have the right to exercise the joy,” Cecily Barrie exclaims. She’s the general manager of the newly opened Santa Barbara hot-spot Bar 29, on the corner of Chapala and Anapamu — the former location of the Hungry Cat. “I have a really great life-and-work balance,” she says, as I sip on a tasty cocktail she’s made for me. When I arrived early to meet her, she had just finished stocking the bar and getting the place set up to open. “Bar 29 is my favorite GM position,” she says, explaining that “because of the size, I can see the whole place at once and interact with every customer.” She has a great working relationship with Bar 29 owners Kourtney and Phil Wright, who also own two other downtown watering holes, Whiskey Richards and The Sportsman. Cecily was sold immediately on their concept for Bar 29, which is a friendly and sophisticated cocktail lounge that serves elevated bar food. The idea was to create an upbeat gathering place with late night food, so they are open six days a week until 1 a.m. “It has the comfort of your home without having to make the food and the cocktails,” Cecily says with a big smile. She has plenty of experience managing restaurants, having done the job at Circle Bar B and having opened what was Cielito (and is now Viva) in the La Arcada complex.
Cecily has had a remarkable life. She was born in Ventura, and for the first 10 years of her life she traveled a lot, much of the time by sailboat. As a child she sailed from Ventura to Hawaii and from Hawaii to Alaska. She also cruised down the West Coast to Costa Rica and South America. During those seagoing years she was home-schooled. She returned to live on land, first in Camarillo and Ventura, and then in Santa Barbara at Refugio Ranch, a move that allowed her to graduate from Dos Pueblos High School. At Santa Barbara City College she majored in journalism. A friend asked her if she wanted to move to New York when she was just 20, and she ended up driving cross-country and then living in Rochester for 13 years. That’s where she got started managing restaurants, and where she earned an associate degree in communication and media studies from Monroe Community College. “I took 14 years to piece an education together — having lots of fun in the meantime,” she shares. “Rochester had an amazing cultural scene — not unlike Santa Barbara.”
In 2008 Cecily’s stepfather, Fred Carr, was diagnosed with lung cancer and given a year to live, so she moved back to Santa Barbara to help with the family business. Carr invented VertiGate, a unique gate that lifts and folds. Cecily’s mother still runs the company. In her spare time, Cecily writes short stories. She now also has a degree in creative writing from Antioch. “I write continuously — less than I would like to, but it’s a passion,” she says.