Houston’s favourite hockey bar has poured its final pint. The Maple Leaf Pub is formally closed.
Open since 2005, the bar had been a Midtown staple recognized for drawing legions of Canadian ex-pats and different hockey fanatics who cheered each shot, move, and combat. Karaoke nights and different happenings stored the bar busy throughout the offseason. Nonetheless, the bar by no means absolutely recovered from modifications in individuals’s leisure spending caused by the Covid pandemic.
In a press release, homeowners Olivia and Sean Blair mourned the dying of the 20-year-old Midtown establishment.
“For many years, she stood as a beacon of no-nonsense hospitality in Midtown, Houston,” the assertion reads partly. “She weathered floods, bar tendencies, and barstool drama, all the time punching above her weight and pouring sturdy.”
Regardless of its beloved standing in the neighborhood, the Maple Leaf couldn’t survive altering demographics, rising costs, and a dispute with the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, which seized the bar for owing greater than $340,000 in unpaid taxes, the Houston Chronicle experiences.
Sean Blair strongly disputes the quantity the Comptroller states that the Maple Leaf owes. He tells CultureMap that an audit carried out by the Comptroller’s Workplace didn’t account for all the things from liquor spilled on accident to the Maple Leaf’s recipes that use a one-and-a-half-ounce pour as an alternative of a one-ounce pour. Whereas he needed to combat to remain open, he referred to as the quantity owed “unattainable” for a small enterprise comparable to his. Confronted with the daunting process of getting to seek out new buyers who may repay the debt and reopen the bar, he and Olivia determined to maneuver on.
Rising prices contributed to placing the bar in a monetary gap. Kegs of the bar’s hottest beers have doubled in value, Blair explains. A typical, half-barrel keg of craft beer may cost a little round $225-250. At these costs, the bar must promote a pint for between $7.50 and $9 to make a revenue, however Blair says he encountered resistance from clients when he tried to take action.
Labor prices went up, too, particularly for cooks. “After Covid, I couldn’t get anybody for lower than $15 — or $18 in order for you them to stay round,” he says.
The rise of streaming made it simpler for individuals to observe the hockey video games that folks used to go to the Maple Leaf for.
Nonetheless, by his personal admission, the Maple Leaf had a “helluva run.”
“Because of those that pulled up a barstool, sang karaoke, fell in love within the nook sales space, or simply wanted a spot to take a seat and never be bothered,” the assertion concludes. “A ultimate toast and unofficial wake to be held wherever the spirit of The Leaf lives on.”
