Robert’s Lafitte, the legendary Galveston dive bar which is also the oldest gay bar in Texas, is days away from its final last call, staffers say.
A long list of deferred maintenance and other financial issues plaguing the 61-year-old institution mean a last-minute cash infusion is the bar’s only hope of getting it back up to code and staying open.
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None of the problems are insurmountable on their own, bartender Terry Michael Fuller told Houston’s Chron.com, but taken together, “they’re things that cost quite a bit of money.”
So the bar’s employees and patrons passed around a ten-gallon hat on Saturday night, with a planned benefit drag show and silent auction. Fuller said they needed to raise at least $10,000 to cover the necessary repairs and permitting.
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In a public Facebook post published in Sunday’s early morning hours, the bar announced it had raised almost $20,000 in donations for the week. It’s unclear if that amount includes a GoFundMe crowdfunding campaign for the bar, which has also raised $11,451 of its $14,000 goal, as of Sunday afternoon.
As the bar was falling down around them, longtime show director Tiffany de la Vega used her own money for the repairs, Fuller shared. Then someone reported the bar to the Galveston County Health District and the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission.
“One little red flag and they come in and start seeing other things that obviously are on a list to get done, and it just kind of snowballed,” Fuller said.
“Poor Tiffany has done her best to make sure that we’re getting Robert’s Lafitte back up to what it used to be,” he said. “But she realized that day when this happened, she can’t do it on her own anymore. And we really need the help of our community to keep Robert’s Lafitte alive.”
The first Lafitte’s, named for the infamous French pirate, Jean Lafitte — who turned Galveston Island into a pirate kingdom for several years before being expelled by the United States Navy — is recorded in city records in 1965. After a few moves, it settled at its current location, Avenue Q and 25th Street, within sight of the historic Pleasure Pier recreation and entertainment area. In 1970, Robert Mainor bought the tavern, added his name, and took the Stonewall Inn as inspiration to build a bar where everyone felt welcome. Mainor died in 2022.
“Robert’s Lafitte has always been a mixed crowd: gay, straight, bi, trans, people of all walks of life,” Fuller said. “People come off the cruise ships and go there. It’s the oldest continuously running gay bar in Texas, and there’s so much rich history.”
“It’s like our second home,” Fuller told The Independent. “It’s our safe place.”
Described variously on socials as “dated,” “old,” “dirty,” “cramped,” and “overly loud for the space,” those are precisely the charms that earn the classic dive bar rave reviews and keep regulars coming back for more. It’s even got a tiny swimming pool in the back.
Last weekend, the bar’s regular Sunday Funday afternoon drag show turned into an impromptu “pre-benefit,” Fuller said. They raised about $2,000.
“Me and the other queens in the cast yesterday, we all just decided, ‘Nope, we’re gonna give every amount that we make today,’ which a lot of them really can’t afford that,” Fuller told Chron on Monday. “But they are like me. They’re like, ‘If we don’t save the bar, then we’re really gonna have no place to go.’ So the outpouring of love and support yesterday was just really amazing.”
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