The question comes from loyal reader Amy:
Do you have any idea what is going on in the sad little building that used to be Cowboy Nightlife on Haywood Rd. in West Asheville? The ‘For Lease” sign is down and I’ve seen people carrying lots of junk out and looking like they are gutting it the past few days. The building looks like it is one Big Bad Wolf’s huff and puff away from toppling over and my curiosity is killing me. Who the heck would rent that place and what are they doing with it? Since I live within walking distance I’m hoping it is going to be fixed up and made into something cool. I’m starting to get neighborhood envy with all the cool new stuff cropping up at the other end of Haywood while the folks down here at the Patton Ave. end still have to live with the hideous and discarded Rush building every day.
8 Comments
Before bitching about lost lifestyle stuff, there are a number of questions that need to be answered. Did the operators of Cowboys own or rent the property? If they did own it, perhaps they went out of business because not enough of the pool shooting nostalgia crowd patronized the business. If the operators rented it, perhaps the property owner feels an opportunity to make more money on his investment with something else there. That’s his right, isn’t it? Don’t get me wrong, I think there is plenty of room in this city for a bar with pool tables. In fact, there are places to do that. But these places have to operate six or seven days a week, not just the one time in six months you want to pick up a cue.
I didn’t have any problem with Cowboy Nightlife as a business, but the building itself is pretty dilapidated. I don’t think of fixing up falling down buildings as "gentrification", it is more the basic upkeep of a community residents care about. When I talked about new things going in down at the other end of Haywood I was thinking of Short Street Cakes and Izzy’s, neither of which I consider bland or bourgeois. Both are locally owned, use local ingredients and (in my opinion) enrich the community.
Why is everyone so scared of change. Competition is good for everyone. The more businesses the better. As for the ATL analogy, that was directed at the nice refurbished neighborhoods in Atlanta that are thriving with independent businesses.
As for your 18 year old not being able to find a job. They should be in college, but I’m sure there is an excuse for that also.
Maybe we will luck out, and it will be another bar, or maybe another coffee shop.
Yes embrace the bland.
I support small buisness, what’s happend to a city where a person can go have a drink, shoot pool, and talk. Cowboy’s was a good place to go and have fun, and it didn’t cost a fortune. That fact must have bothered someone, so it will be destroyed, that’s what’s wrong with our new Asheville. Stop trying to control middle class citizen’s that dosen’t see Asheville the you want it. I thought this was a free country.
Great. Let’s make it just like Atlanta! That’s called gentrification, and, no, not everyone benefits from skyrocketing property values. The vast majority of our work force labors in menial service jobs that pay low wages — you know, the folks that make your latte? They typically rent and rents have skyrocketed. The irony is the Chamber advertises how cool and funky and artsy Asheville is. Yet the artists can’t afford to live here anymore.
And ask anyone who has kids who are over 18 — they can’t stay because there are no jobs (other than waiter) and can’t afford to live here. The health and vibrancy of a community is not based on property values.
Asheville was once a diverse and accepting place that had opera and stock car racing, Laughing Seed and Cowboy’s Nightlife. And we were "richer’ for it. The trend today is to replace shops with boutiques and diners with cafes.
We’re sucking the soul out of this place.
West Asheville is the new Virginia Highlands (Atlanta). Property value will skyrocket as it did in Montford and everyone will benefit. Lets enjoy this transformation and support it.
Cowboy’s WAS cool. Damn shame it closed. It will morph into another yoga studio or theme restaurant/pub. Day by day West Asheville looses its connection to its blue collar roots — the very thing that made it affordable to begin with.