Union Bar & Grill to reopen after 'restructuring'; may be sold
By Jim Phillips
March 20, 2008
The Union Grill has closed down temporarily for “restructuring,” and may be sold, co-owner Courtney Lenart confirmed Tuesday. However, the bar plans to reopen on Friday, and all previously booked shows will carry on.
On Monday and Tuesday, rumors were flying in the Athens music scene that the bar/restaurant, one of the city’s top venues for live indie and hardcore music, was going to close, with stories circulating of a wild farewell party Sunday night.
Lenart, who owns the business with her husband Lou, said selling the Union is a real possibility. Whatever ends up happening, she said, the Union has closed down until Friday to allow some work to be done inside, and to let the couple consider their options, which are “primarily re-structuring or selling” the business.
“We’re trying to re-structure, but my husband is deciding whether he wants to sell or not,” she said.
With Lou Lenart having been serving as an Army major in Iraq for the last four years, and with Courtney pursuing graduate studies and raising a child, she confirmed, the couple have not been able to devote as much attention to the Union as was needed to keep it running smoothly.
“We just haven’t had the time for oversight, and the goings-on haven’t been conducive to retaining revenue,” she said. Lenart would not elaborate on this, but did say that part of the immediate re-structuring will include some staff changes.
“There will be some new staff,” she said. “Some of the staff will be retained – the ones who were very hard workers.”
The bar will reopen Friday, she said, and will host all shows upstairs that were already scheduled, including bands Friday, Saturday and next Wednesday.
Promoter Scott Winland, who books the acts at the Union, confirmed that this is his understanding as well. “I haven’t canceled anything that was on the books,” Winland said.
The downstairs bar, which serves food, will reopen as well, with its doors opening at Happy Hour, but probably won’t serve food until after spring break, Courtney Lenart said.
Lenart said that multiple parties have expressed an interest in buying the Union if it goes up for sale. She said the plan is, if the bar is sold, to keep it as the Union and as a music venue. Whether that would work, however, she said, would depend partly on whether promoter Scott Winland would stay involved, and obviously on whether the new owners followed that plan.
In a prepared release, Lou Lenart said it was “one of the greatest pleasures of my life for many years to be able to provide the Union Bar and Grill as a unique venue which strives to provide a comfortable setting on the cultural cutting edge where all individuals can find refuge from the conformity of the status quo and which provides people an experience that makes them happy and wanting to return.”
The Union, which Stuff magazine once ranked as among the best “dive bars” in the country, is among the oldest continuously running bars in Athens, if not the oldest.
After word got around that Lou Lenart, just back from the Middle East, had mentioned possibly selling the bar, the rumor spread rapidly, gaining in drama and certainty with every re-telling, according to his wife. The upshot was a perhaps premature farewell party last Sunday night, that by some reports got quite weepy, wild and bacchanalian before it was over.
“Somehow the rumor just got spread around town – you know Athens – and it just happened,” Courtney Lenart said. “I wasn’t there, but I heard it was interesting.”
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