There he was at a Pride celebration, smoking a cigarette in a rainbow speedo and sunglasses. There he was at the bar in a three-piece suit, asking if anyone needed anything. During his years in Baltimore, bartender J. Mooy seemed to be everywhere.

“He was wildly vibrant, wildly colorful with a ‘don’t f--- with me’ attitude, but with rainbows and sparkles,” friend and food influencer Tim “Chyno” Chin said through tears.

Mooy died May 24 at age 40. His sudden passing has left Baltimore’s dining scene grieving a bright light, hard worker and devoted friend. “He was a big character in a small world,” said Brendan Finnerty, co-owner of The Idle Hour, where Mooy worked.

Clavel owner Lane Harlan said Mooy was “a magical person“ who, from the outside at least, seemed to be having the time of his life. Chef and restaurateur Jesse Sandlin called him a force of nature and a local celebrity. ”I think this is really affecting a lot of people pretty deeply,” she said.

His sister Hannah Mooy said the cause of death was suicide.

An early job at Dawson’s Liquors in Severna Park paved the way for J. Mooy’s career in the bar and restaurant industry, with stints at Hampden’s Union Craft Brewing and The Brewer’s Art. He was serious about work. “Even if he would have done a desk job or been a lawyer, he would have had that same work ethic,” Sandlin said.

Mooy had long been a fixture of the scene when Finnerty “courted him” for a job at Idle Hour. “I tried to butter him up with a few Chartreuse shots to get him to work for me,” he said. It took a few months, but Mooy eventually agreed. “As much of a party boy as he was, he was an undercover accountant as well,” Finnerty said.

He often spoke of Hannah, his younger sister, who called him her protector and “absolutely my favorite person in the entire world.”

Born Jeremy Christian Mooy, he became “J. Mooy” at Severna Park High School — a name he kept for life and used with almost everyone except his bandmates and family. He could always be seen wearing a band T-shirt, his hair parted down the middle and grazing his cheekbones. “I was always jealous of his really luscious hair,” Hannah said.

His creativity shined through in his dandyish style, which included several three-piece suits and one all-orange getup he wore to Orioles games. He was often spotted wearing a necklace and fanny pack that both said “Daddy.” Hannah thinks he owned around 60 pairs of sunglasses, which she intends to give away along with his T-shirts at a memorial service at Clavel on June 29.

Mooy collected friends from all walks of life whom he encountered in the local music and bar scenes, said Lindsay Walker, a regular at Union who met him while he was working there. “He was also the guy who would pick you up after you had a bad date,” she said. If you invited him over, he would bring tons of beer — in a cooler — and help take the trash out, too.

Chin called the bartender an ally who stood up for his queer friends and celebrated Pride with ferocity, even though he dated women.

Sandlin said Mooy, spiritual and intuitive by nature, had a way of just popping up whenever she needed him, as though they were cosmically linked. “He felt people’s energies,“ she said, and embraced the witchy and woo woo. His Instagram account shows photos of tarot cards and sage bundles. A bandmate called Mooy “Plant Witch.”

Music was a large part of Mooy’s life. Starting in high school, he sang in two different bands, and played the guitar, bass and drums. He was the front man for The Distinguished Gentlemen, an artistic outlet he loved alongside the camaraderie of his bandmates, Walker said. He was always a free spirit, but he came even more alive on stage.

Harlan recalled how she begged Mooy, whom she’d met years earlier, to wait tables at Clavel when she opened the restaurant in 2015. Once a week, he would take charge of the entire floor at Clavel, with Harlan chasing after him, bussing his tables. “He made it joyful and so fun and then he went on to the next thing.” His optimistic attitude was contagious, making it all the harder for his friends to reconcile his glittering personality with the circumstances of his death.

“That crushes me, not knowing that part of him,” Harlan said.

Hannah hopes that her brother’s life and tragic death will encourage people to love others more fiercely and to “unapologetically be themselves, because that’s what he would have wanted.”

Pride Month began Sunday, and Chin, Walker and some of Mooy’s other friends have been brainstorming ways to celebrate one of their friend’s favorite events without him. Whatever they do, they’ll wear something outrageous. Mooy would have wanted that.

If you or someone you know is experiencing a mental health crisis, call or text 988 to contact the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.

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