Top Bars in San Angelo for May 2011
Fiddlestrings is “crushing it.” The locally owned tavern just off Sherwood Way broke six figures in sales for the first time since we’ve been covering booze sales at San Angelo, Texas bars back in December. They are the only non-corporate chain to break $100k, too. Buffalo Wild Wings is the only other member of the six-figure club, and it posted six-figure sales only once, in January.
Midnight Rodeo San Angelo Annihilates Graham Central Station
In the large nightclub category, The Graham Brothers threw in the towel this month, being soundly defeated and demoralized by their rival down the street, Midnight Rodeo. Graham Central Station announced they have sold the property and leaving town. The new owners promise to re-open the former Graham Central Station in the Fall, just in time for Angelo State’s Fall semester. I was hoping for another motel on that property instead. Darn.
But even though Midnight is losing its rival (Graham CS basically gave up in May, with sales down $30k off its historical highs of $60k-$70k), Midnight Rodeo fell down too.
Well get more news regarding San Angelo here. That the university is in its summer session is probably hindering Midnight Rodeo’s gross sales. They are down into small nightclub sales figures, at $53k. The last gasps of Graham’s only pulled in $36k this same month, and Midnight was unable to capitalize on Graham’s lost clientele.
Are the “meat market” club formats going the way of bellbottoms and big combs in your back pocket… or poodle skirts?
Downtown Hangs Tough
The buzzing downtown area dropped this month, led by a $20k drop in sales from the usual stalwart, Fat Boss. But the rest of San Angelo was down overall this month, and downtown retained its second place in the area stats. Fat Boss owner John Castillo explains that Fat Boss was closed for 12 days in May for remodeling, and that included two weekends. "We bounced back in June and hit our usual numbers, thanks to our great customers," Castillo says.
At the same time, Sherwwod Way saw a net increase, month-over-month, in an overall down month. Is the smoking ban helping neighborhood bars with large outside areas, and hurting those venues with less comfortable smoking areas (that is, smoking areas that don’t have swimming pools)?