Evansville Says Goodbye To Another 'Hot Spot' Business Owners React
By: Casie Mason
Updated: February 17, 2013
Another one bites the dust. Evansville hot spot Fox and Hound closed their doors this week making them the fourth night scene to say goodbye to the area in less than a year. Icon, Fast Eddy's, Stoney's, and Fox and Hound are all closed for business. Seeing their competition disappear has us wondering if other popular night spots think they will be next. Backstage Bar and Grill is located downtown Evansville where they are about to celebrate being open a full year. As many local hot spots are closing I asked Backstage what they are doing right.
Hot now, stone cold later. That seems to be the trend this past year as Evansville sees another nightlife hot spot close it's doors, and it has people wondering, "What's going down next, or what's going to pop up next. It sucked whenever Stoney's closed, I used to have a good time down there," says Doug Houdson. Fast Eddy's, Stoney's, and Fox and Hound are now a thing of the past. Backstage employee, Kathlen Mueller, also worked at Fox and Hound and says the news was a shock. Perhaps more shocking was finding out she was out of a job through a text. "I was actually supposed to work that morning and I got a text at 8:10. saying that we were closed. I was like do I come in today? They were like nope we're done." Mueller says she isn't worried Backstage will have the same fate as Fox and Hound. "I think we try and kind of change it up to get different types of people in, different crowds." It's been almost a year since Backstage Bar and Grill opened on Main Street. Owners say surviving in the come-and-go Evansville nightlife is something they take seriously. "See what's working, what's not working, to keep people coming to backstage," says General Manager Shane Carry. Carry says the bar is learning what it takes to turn empty chairs into full barstools. "Shane, the bathrooms are so clean the place is awesome, the place is clean, the food is great. We're trying to just keep consistency and keep people down here and hopefully other places will build up around us, so down town will be the spot for a long time." In the end people say it all works out, "One more bar closing will only make the bars that are the 'hot spots' like here, even hotter," adds Houdson.
Backstage tells me they are about to celebrate their one year in April and they have some big plans in store for the Evansville area, for what they hope to be, the next several years to come.
Hot now, stone cold later. That seems to be the trend this past year as Evansville sees another nightlife hot spot close it's doors, and it has people wondering, "What's going down next, or what's going to pop up next. It sucked whenever Stoney's closed, I used to have a good time down there," says Doug Houdson. Fast Eddy's, Stoney's, and Fox and Hound are now a thing of the past. Backstage employee, Kathlen Mueller, also worked at Fox and Hound and says the news was a shock. Perhaps more shocking was finding out she was out of a job through a text. "I was actually supposed to work that morning and I got a text at 8:10. saying that we were closed. I was like do I come in today? They were like nope we're done." Mueller says she isn't worried Backstage will have the same fate as Fox and Hound. "I think we try and kind of change it up to get different types of people in, different crowds." It's been almost a year since Backstage Bar and Grill opened on Main Street. Owners say surviving in the come-and-go Evansville nightlife is something they take seriously. "See what's working, what's not working, to keep people coming to backstage," says General Manager Shane Carry. Carry says the bar is learning what it takes to turn empty chairs into full barstools. "Shane, the bathrooms are so clean the place is awesome, the place is clean, the food is great. We're trying to just keep consistency and keep people down here and hopefully other places will build up around us, so down town will be the spot for a long time." In the end people say it all works out, "One more bar closing will only make the bars that are the 'hot spots' like here, even hotter," adds Houdson.
Backstage tells me they are about to celebrate their one year in April and they have some big plans in store for the Evansville area, for what they hope to be, the next several years to come.
