This pop-up art gallery serves all-you-can-eat pancakes???

After 14 years, 40 cities and 500 shows, Tom Kirlin is finally bringing his art-and-pancake extravaganza to his hometown.

The Pancakes & Booze Art Show, known for offering all-you-can-eat-pancakes alongside loads of artwork, is a one-day pop-up gallery coming to Tucson on Saturday, Oct. 21. 

Kirlin was born and raised in Tucson, attending Pima Community College after the school launched a two-year film program. He eventually moved to Los Angeles, where he worked in film for a dozen or so years.

“As I got a little bit older, as hard as I worked to get into that industry, I wasn’t living a lifestyle that I wanted,” he says. “I had this grand idea to rent a warehouse space and open a small photography-slash-production space — and it was failing miserably. I needed to find a way to make some money with the space because I had a huge overhead.”

Kirlin was friends with artists in the area who wanted a space to showcase their work. What was once a photography and production studio for Kirlin turned into an underground art gallery.

“At that time, this was 15 years ago, most art shows were free and you’d go and it would be one of those wine-and-cheese types of events,” he says.

Most of the artists he knew were young — he didn’t want to take a commission from them, but he knew he needed to make money.

Then it hit him: pancakes.

If he offered something like all-you-can-eat pancakes, he could justify charging an admission fee to gallery attendees. And it worked.

“It was a hit from the very first time we did it. It kinda caught the art community in LA,” he says. “It turned into a couple hundred people to 500 people to a thousand. Once I knew I had something, I started doing it in different cities.”

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He’s since brought the show to cities across the U.S., from Atlanta to Austin to Detroit to Honolulu. Before the pandemic hit, he had taken the show overseas to London, Paris and Berlin.

After a long 14 years, Kirlin has never brought the show to Tucson — until now.

“For me, when I was younger, I wanted to get out of Tucson so bad. I was like, I gotta get out of here, I gotta explore the world,” he says. “I really love Tucson now that I’m a bit older, but when I was younger I wanted to get out.”

He still has family and friends here and he finally found the perfect venue — The Whistle Stop Depot, 127 W. Fifth St. It was time to bring Pancakes & Booze to Tucson.

The show will feature close to 100 artists, from paintings and photography hanging on the walls to vendors selling fashion, candles and jewelry.

“That’s what’s kinda fun about it — it’s a very welcoming atmosphere for artists so we have everything from seasoned experienced artists you might see in a fine art gallery, and then we have people who have never shown their artwork before who are maybe experimenting with their career,” Kirlin says.

There will be all-you-can-eat pancakes, of course, plus a DJ and a cash bar. You can also watch live painting — both on canvases and on bodies. Tickets are on sale here, ranging from $10-$20. The show starts at 8 p.m. and is for ages 21 and up.

“It’s kinda like the antithesis of a snobby pretentious wine-and-art show,” he says. “It’s the total opposite. We pride our event on that.”