Downtown's Blaine's Pub Sold

The storied Blaine’s Pub, 12 West Harris Street, in downtown San Angelo has a new owner. Katie Bollinger and her boyfriend Cody Sturm bought the bar from Midland oilman Steve Brown and family this month.

Katie is no stranger to Blaine’s. She has worked there since 2007. “When I interviewed to be a waitress, Leon Roach (then the partner and manager) told me that I couldn’t work here for more than three years,” she said. When Roach told her that, he meant to advise Katie that she had more talent, brains and an education to not get stuck waitressing in a bar for all of her early life. Neither could have imagined that Katie would one day own the bar.

A native of St. Louis, whose family moved to Kerrville in her high school years, Katie moved to San Angelo in 2005 to successfully pursue a degree in marketing at Angelo State. Degree in hand, Katie stayed. And she has been involved with Blaine’s ever since that 2007 job interview, seven years later. She has waitressed and eventually took on booking bands and coordinating the marketing of Blaine’s.

Her boyfriend Cody and Katie took an interlude in 2012 and founded Sturm’s Tavern in Miles, a venture that was a success. But when Blaine’s Pub partner Brantley Heiser offered to sell Blaine’s to the couple, they set forth to close the Miles bar and begin the transition to becoming thriving Downtown San Angelo’s newest business owners.

The late Blaine Martin founded Blaine’s Pub in 1997. Martin opened the bar just in time for the resurgence of a special genre of music called Texas Country. The genre was gently pushing aside the old fogies of the 1970s like Waylon and Willie, and attracting a younger audience with newer, hipper artists. With college kids swapping cassette tapes (and eventually Napster downloads) of a Nashville unknown named Pat Green, outlets like Blaine’s thrived, where the special kind of music was played—generally described as a cross between Ernest Tubb and Southern Rock. Blaine’s was small enough a venue to host many of the up-and-coming musicians and bands on the Texas Country circuit. For Blaine’s, Pat Green, who eventually made it to Nashville, was one of them.

Likewise, Blaine’s Pub’s size lends itself to hosting shows from the old timer Texas music artists like Johnny Bush, and good ‘ol Blaine Martin enjoyed the older bands as much as he did the young guys, said Don Baker, who has been the opening bartender since the beginning. Don is affectionately called just “Baker’ by his thousands of regulars who have come and gone to and from the bar over the years.

Everyone talks about the tiny stage Blaine’s had in the early years. Baker sized it up. “It was tiny,” he said. And though it was enlarged in the 2000s, it still is small, and it’s a known challenge to the hundreds of traveling artists who have performed at Blaine’s.

But Baker’s best recollection of the bar was when he made a decision to start opening at 7 a.m. “For those just getting off the night shift,” Baker said. “I was showing up to work at 7 a.m. anyway to get things in order, and opening at eight, so I just started turning on the lights and unlocking the door at seven,” Baker said. Blaine Martin let Baker go home an hour earlier after Baker set the new opening time.

The lighting is an important feature at Blaine’s Pub. “Blaine wanted to have a place where the ladies felt comfortable. That’s why there’s not a dark corner anywhere inside the bar,” Baker said, pointing to the bright overhead lights. And there is a certain level of comfort the ladies appreciate at Blaine’s. The bar has been hosting the Working Women’s Wednesday since 2008, a very popular tradition at the bar now.

Katie recalls waitressing at Blaine’s on a Thursday night when Josh Abbott or Bart Crow would be on stage with an acoustic guitar. “No one was in the bar except me and maybe a couple of patrons. And there was Josh up there hoping someone would listen to his songs,” Katie said. Today both Abbott and Crow earn top dollar on the Texas music circuit. Katie has an ear for talent, and now that she’s the owner, she’s unrestrained on deciding upon whom Blaine’s will book to become the next Texas Country Music sensation.

Katie and Cody have taken incremental steps already to put their mark on the Blaine’s Pub tradition. The first step was replacing the beer cooler behind the bar. It was causing problems for years, Katie said. Blaine’s is hiring new staff and plans a party to celebrate the transition the first week of October with Jason Boland and the Stragglers, Gary P. Nunn, and Johnny Bush celebrating the new Blaine’s on Oct. 2, 3, and 4th.

Until then, Blaine’s opens at 7 a.m. every morning except Mondays and Baker will be there just like always.

“Cody and Katie will do great with the pub. I don't think we could have found a better fit to carry on the tradition. Both of them have been a part of the Blaine's Pub family for years and will have no problem being successful. We wish them the best,” said Steve Brown’s son-in-law Brantley Heiser, who was the managing partner when the Brown family sold the bar to the couple.