The popular nightspot has been atop the 10-story building at Montrose and Hawthorne since May 1999 and has regularly drawn jazz greats, R&B upstarts and local celebs. It will close Saturday — but likely be back, in some form.
Gertner, who has also taken the stage at his namesake venue, talked to me about the seemingly sudden news and his plans moving forward.
Exactly why is SkyBar closing?
About five months ago, the building was purchased in auction. We tried over the past months to work out a new lease, but they kept putting me off saying they didn’t know what they were going to do. I started to see that the building was being neglected — even to the point that my staff would walk the entire four-story parking garage and lobby to clean it ourselves after the nightclub was closed — wipe the windows, clean the elevators, everything that my prior lease included that was the responsibility of the landlord.
Big, orange, neon City of Houston stickers started to appear on all doors listing the permits were outdated. We had several visits from the fire marshal about the building and even thought they were going to shut it down two weeks ago. Nothing like closing us down on the second biggest holiday of the year. Skybar was always one of the best venues to view fireworks on the fourth of July.
How did you react when you realized it was actually happening?
At first I had mixed feelings — half-bittersweet, the other half looking forward to working on another concept. Then I got mad and couldn’t understand why such short notice. I have been in this location for 11 years with great success and awards. Everyone at one time or another has walked through these doors.
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Via: Chron.com
