Magician Spencer Horsman has had to use just about every trick in the book to keep Illusions Bar & Theater in Federal Hill open in the 17 years he has owned it.

There was the national recession in the early years and, more recently, the COVID-19 pandemic that brought all in-person entertainment to a halt and then changed the way people spend their time and money.

Now it’s just Horsman and his fiancée, Nicole Bailey, a co-owner of Illusions, staffing the magic bar, which is open two days a week for shows in the smaller of its two spaces.

Illusions now offers a more intimate experience than in the past, when there were other employees and performances in both the 40- and 80-seat sections. But over the years the magic bar has become a staple of the neighborhood, a quirky and scrappy Baltimore institution that draws locals and tourists alike for its ticketed, one-man comedy magic shows.

Horsman’s father, Kenneth Horsman — or Ken-Zo the Clown, as he liked to be known — bought the building on South Charles Street in 1985 to operate as a magic store. In 2007, the night of Horsman’s 21st birthday, it reopened after renovations into the bar it is today.

“I would say it’s taken 17 years becoming an overnight success,” Horsman said.

Between the Friday night and Saturday afternoon and night shows and the bar’s private bookings, Horsman said, he performs about 200 times a year. He also works at special events in other locations.

A 20th-year celebration is in the works, along with other projects that Horsman hopes will grow his business. For those curious about what’s next, Horsman has one response:

“Like any good magic trick, you don’t reveal it until it’s time.”

The 38-year-old, who is open about his diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, is no stranger to being nimble when it comes to keeping financially solvent. In the depths of the pandemic, he took a job as an autopsy technician at the University of Maryland Medical Center.

Horsman gained a touch of national renown as a stunt artist, competing in the seventh season of “America’s Got Talent.” In the show, he was chained in a water-filled box with only two minutes to escape — he keeps the box as a memento at the bar. He dialed back his most aggressive stunts after a recent diagnosis of a medical condition that leads to headaches and fainting spells, he said.

Unlike other magicians who rely on darkness and mystery, Horsman draws immediate attention with his platinum blond hair as he lets his “ADHD run free” and cracks jokes as he performs magic. It’s common to see Bailey flitting from the bar to the audience to deliver cocktails to customers throughout Horsman’s show.

He’s not hiding anything up his sleeve, and he uses his life story to set the pace of the show. The show is completely improv, with Horsman learning to adjust to his audience.

Bailey comes from a small-business background — she also runs a pet-photography business — and is happy dealing with finance and marketing to free up Horsman to focus solely on magic.

“We both have pretty clearly delineated responsibilities, and we don’t really step on each other’s toes,” she said.

Like most small-business owners, Bailey and Horsman say they never truly have a day off, and they reinvest everything into Illusions. They describe their “splurges” as buying plants or magic books.

“We don’t have a fallback,” Horsman said. “I live and breathe magic. I have my entire life.”

A third-generation Baltimorean, Horsman said the bar survived month to month for the first few years, which coincided with the recession.

“I travel the country, travel the world about opportunities to go and move elsewhere, but chose to stay here and keep investing here into my business, into my city,” he said.

Everything that Horsman learned about business came from his father.

After a career as a clown, the official Ronald McDonald representative for 20 years and owner of a party supplies business, the elder Horsman bought the Federal Hill property against the advice of those around him, Spencer Horsman said.

Insisting that the neighborhood would become a thriving commercial and nightlife destination, Kenneth Horsman built everything himself.

When first opening, Horsman’s father would take hours to sweep the outside the bar. He would often pull people off the street to give a tour of the place — even during construction.

His presence looms large even after his death. Customers still come up to Horsman to tell him they first heard about the bar from his father.

“When we say hand-built our following here,” Horsman said, “we hand-built it like — no joke.”

Horsman’s father died in 2016 from cancer. After that, Horsman managed the business by himself. At first he welcomed a two-month break as the pandemic began in March 2020. Closing a week before shutdowns, he decided this would be the time to recharge.

Horsman hated Zoom magic shows popular during the pandemic, saying they took more energy than he received back. Knowing he needed a change, Horsman set off into the workforce. His quick hand skills came into use as an autopsy technician for a year. He eventually got training to remove organs that the pathologist needed.

His odd jobs put him in contact with T.J. Smith, a former city police spokesman who was assisting Jimmy’s Famous Seafood in awarding grants to small businesses in Baltimore during the pandemic.

The restaurant’s contribution paid Illusions’s property tax for the year, keeping the struggling business afloat.

“I would have had to been begging, pleading and stealing from a lot of people at one time to try to make that transition happen,” Horsman said.

Slowly, Illusions welcomed more people into the bar and adapted to the circumstances. Before the pandemic, Horsman employed two to four people. Ever since, it has been just Bailey and he.

“But thankfully, when people are losing their jobs and losing their homes,” Horsman said, “they still want to have entertainment.”

Correction: This story has been updated to correct T.J. Smith’s employment history.