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Staying wet while Wal-Mart lurks

Patrons at a Cheers-like watering hole in Pasco relish the fact that Wal-Mart hasn't yet bought the Bobkatz property.

By DAVID DeCAMP
Published August 15, 2006

HUDSON - Wal-Mart Supercenters give you a place to get your hair cut while your tires are replaced. You can buy groceries, camping gear or jewelry inside 200,000 square feet of bright lights and bargains, day and night.

But it's not where you'll find your birthday marked on the wall calendar or a burger named after you. For that, you'll have to go to Bobkatz Bar & Grill, a local joint on U.S. 19 that survived the rise and fall of the Bayonet Point Mall and plans to outlive Wal-Mart, too.

Over the past few years, Wal-Mart found a way to buy the vacant Bayonet Point Mall and overcome neighborhood opposition to the store, which will be north of State Road 52 on U.S. 19. The store is being designed around the bar, which is on the southwest corner of the property.

But Wal-Mart has yet to find a way to purchase the Bobkatz property. And the regulars want to keep it that way.

"I think what we're going to do is put a gate up and charge admission," said Jack Wylie, 79, who comes four days a week for more than just the cocktails.

Almost everything Wal-Mart is - huge, commercialized, bustling - Bobkatz is not. It is small, and the concrete block building is 50 years old. The operators are mostly family and know the regulars and their drink and food of choice.

"I like to think we're like that city in Texas that had a whorehouse and the town grew up around it because everybody kept going," said part-owner Pete White, 60.

"I just want it on the record we are not a whorehouse," said part-owner John Graham, 48, White's brother-in-law.

If they have their say, Bobkatz always will keep opening at 11 a.m., usually for someone like Lou Nocki, 61, of Hudson. Nocki is one of the "irregulars who come here regularly" whom Graham knows so well their birthdays - roughly a hundred of them - are marked on a calendar.

"A redneck Cheers," Graham, kiddingly called it after the Boston pub.

Nocki, who began arriving four years ago, favors a beer and a uniquely spiced burger with jalapeno cheese, grilled and raw onions - a creation the owners are naming after him. He comes daily to watch Westerns for several hours. There's normally a klatsch of lovably, ornery regulars with him.

"I hope it doesn't close," said Nocki, leaning in to the end of the bar.

The reasons are uncomplicated.

"It's close to home; it's an enjoyable little bar," Nocki said. "Nothing special. They have good food."

Jack Foley, 66, who sells peanut bags to the bar, has come for about 36 years. He picked Bobkatz - a moniker of two former owners' names - because it was the only place he could find for a drink, he said. Over the years it's had different names, such as Stan's Rendezvous, but not much other than the menu has changed.

The front of the block building is painted white, except for random blocks of aqua and light purple. A sign warns, "Proper Dress Required" - a rule with limited exceptions in a place where shorts, tank tops and sandals are the norm. The bar closes at 2 a.m. most days and stays open during holidays and hurricanes.

Inside, folks relax among the typical mash of beer-brand signs, dart game machines and televisions. Yes, there's a pencil sketch of a bobcat. In the evening, the jukebox pumps well-worn sounds, such as Rod Stewart's Tonight's the Night, for the crowd to get jiggy with it.

However fun it seems, Bobkatz is not about giving a major corporation a stiff-arm (or in the bar's style, something more salty). The property owner, Henry Javer of Clearwater, has another motive.

Wal-Mart's offer a few years ago of $150,000 was too low, Javer said. The building was bought in 1985 for $190,000, and is now assessed at $231,000, according to county records. Javer said he wants $3-million, perhaps as a bit of bartering as Wal-Mart prepares to build. The company is free to make another offer, he said.

The bar's owners said Javer keeps offering new leases, and their deal has three to four years left. If they have to leave, the owners want to set up business in another place nearby.

Besides, the new Wal-Mart could be a boon to business. All those shoppers might want a cold one or some chicken wings. And someone greeting them by their first name.

Irene Molampy, 53

Tenure: 20 years

On BOBKATZ: "This place, everybody trusts each other here. This is like a family."

Lori Smith, 38

Tenure: 11 years

On Wal-Mart: "I think some patrons were worried about what we were going to do. They know the reality of the situation ... I think it's going to be a good thing for us."

Jack Foley, 66

Tenure: 36 years

On BOBKATZ: "It's the personality of the people running the bar, too. When [owner] John [Graham] doesn't work, we don't come in - I'm sorry."

Jack Wylie, 79

Tenure: 4 years

On Wal-Mart: "The little lady can say we're going shopping to Wal-Mart, and the old man take her over and say, 'I'm going to the bar.' "

AT A GLANCE:

Wal-Mart plans to start construction on its store near Beacon Woods in Hudson in 45 to 60 days, said Glenn Smith, attorney for the company. Plans for the 203,000-square-foot store are being reviewed by the Florida Department of Transportation before beginning work at the site of a former mall, which has been vacant since 1989. The new store would open next year.

[Last modified August 15, 2006, 06:49:13]