Updated Aug. 12, 2020 to show official opening date of Aug. 13, 2020.
Legendary honky-tonk Billy Bob’s Texas will reopen Aug. 13, with the understanding that it’s a restaurant and music venue first, a bar second.
The 127,000-square-foot venue has been shut down since June 26, when Gov. Greg Abbott’s order forced any establishment that makes 51% or more of its sales from alcohol to close. Billy Bob’s general manager Marty Travis worked with the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission (TABC) to apply for a new certificate that will allow the mega-venue to open as a restaurant whose food and concert ticket totals add up to more than 60% of the venue’s gross sales.
It’ll be one of the biggest restaurants around: Its capacity is 6,000 people, though Billy Bob’s staff plans to allow no more than 1,200 inside during the COVID-19 pandemic. Gov. Abbott’s mandate for restaurants would allow it to be filled at 50% occupancy for now, but Travis says a smaller number is better.
Several other entertainment complexes, like Texas Live in Arlington and Lava Cantina in The Colony, have reopened in this way.
“We’re all trying to survive,” Travis says. “Are we skirting the law a little bit? No, we’re working with the guidelines TABC put out there. Our restaurant just has a concert hall. And a dance floor. And a retail store.”
Billy Bob’s is famous for its country concerts featuring legends such as Willie Nelson, Reba McEntire and George Strait. It’ll celebrate its 40th birthday next year. It’s a place to shoot pool, line dance and, sure, eat a chopped brisket sandwich in the restaurant.
Travis knows that nobody mistook it for a giant restaurant in the past. COVID-19 changed that.
“I want to say we’re Billy Bob’s, the world’s largest honky-tonk” — which has been its tagline for decades, Travis says. Now, they want to call it “Billy Bob’s, the world’s largest honky-tonk-themed restaurant,” notes Keitha Spears, managing director of branding and marketing at Billy Bob’s.
The venue is expected to reopen Aug. 13. His staff of 270 people had been slimmed to 10, and those remaining employees took a 30% pay cut. Some of the laid-off employees received Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) money while the venue was closed. Billy Bob’s received between $1 million and $2 million in PPP grants, according to records.
Travis plans to hire back about 100 people.
Billy Bob’s will resume as a live-music venue, with the Bellamy Brothers performing Aug. 14 and concerts scheduled through the end of the month. Anyone who buys a “ticket to the restaurant,” as Travis puts it, will have a seat inside the venue. They won’t be required to sit in it, but crowds will not be allowed to congregate near the stage.
Travis says that the new TABC classification allows Billy Bob’s to remain in business and help keep musicians paid, too. With the club at about one-sixth the full capacity, both the venue and the musician will make smaller margins. But Travis believes the effort is worthwhile.
“We can all make a little bit less money, or we can all stay home and make no money,” he says.
How will Billy Bob’s safety guidelines work?
Billy Bob’s has a lengthy set of safety guidelines on its website. Staffers are required to wear masks and gloves, and customers will be asked to social distance. But there are some odd additions, too.
The pool tables will no longer be coin-operated. Customers who want to shoot pool will trade their driver’s license for a set of sanitized pool cues and balls. Customers’ hands also won’t be stamped to show whether they’re over 21 years old, because staffers don’t want to touch every person coming in, and they’re worried stamps could wash off — especially with all the hand sanitizer being used. So Billy Bob’s team bought wristbands and will ask over-21 customers to put it on themselves while staffers watch.
The biggest safety expense was a $20,000 thermal camera that checks guests’ temperatures when they walk in the venue. All customers will enter through one door. Anyone whose temperature is above 99.5 degrees will be checked again by a staffer holding a no-touch thermometer.
“If they’re red again, we’re going to tell them they can’t come in,” Travis says. “We have a dedicated clean team. They’ll get them out the door and give them their money back.”
The dance floor will be monitored, and only 30 people will be allowed. All have to wear masks.
Travis believes none of his staffers have contracted COVID-19, despite a burst of cases among food-industry workers in Dallas-Fort Worth.
“We know the building does not have coronavirus in it,” he says. “Now our job is to keep it out.”
