"After almost seven months, Match, the cigar bar in New Albany, is closing and will be replaced by a smoke-free establishment."
It's a scalp-gouger, so let's get this straight.
Your LLC owns a building and leases space to a plush cigar lounge of proven merit, the major selling point of which is that it's a comfortable place to ... um ... smoke (and buy, and venerate) cigars, and then when it is decided that the cigar lounge can't cover the massive nut you've incurred from purchasing a building in the hope that a transplanted City Hall across the street will return your investment with compounded gravy, suddenly smoking becomes the root problem.
THE GREEN MOUSE: Match Cigar Bar NA is no more, but what's up with the restaurant rumored to be coming to the space?
Seems to us the root problem might be the insider information dispensed by the mayoral minions, but in any event, there's something off kilter about this story, Let's begin with the newspaper's coverage. We learn that a woman named Michelle Ray is the building's manager, seeing as the owners still don't have names like other human beings.
For what it's worth, we believe these men are called Metts and Triplett. Real estate speculators? It doesn't really matter; may they soon profit massively from whatever tidbits David Duggins spoon fed them -- and if not, they should invoice him for TIF futures.
Anyway, the last business to operate in the building prior to Match's arrival was a bar called Main Street Pub.
The short-lived Main Street Pub replaced the equally ephemeral Red Dragon Pub, all of which came and went very quickly before the building was sold to the current owners.
The newspaper's Grady takes it from here. Welcome to Double Barrel. We can't wait to see what's on tap -- and this sentiment is offered with perfect sincerity. In the interim, the high rollers might consider stepping out of the shadows.
And this pro tip: If you'll be serving Team Gahan's cadres once the refurbishment is completed, make sure to stock plenty of ice cold Bud Light Lime-flavored KOOL-Aid. They're simply powerless at the thought of it.
Lounge bar 'minus the smoking' replacing Match Cigar Bar's New Albany location, by Danielle Grady (New Adventures in Clark County)
NEW ALBANY — The owner of 145, 147 and 151 E. Main St. plans to strike it out on their own with a new bar, replacing Match Cigar Bar, which closed its New Albany location on Dec. 19 after almost seven months in business.
“It was unfortunate, obviously, that Match didn’t work out the way that we had hoped,” said Michelle Ray, the building’s manager, who has partnered with the building’s owner, 145-151 East Main Street LLC, to open the new bar. “...We have decided not just to let this place go to the wayside.”
Jeff Mouttet, the owner of Match, which still maintains its original Jeffersonville location, could not reveal all the details about why he closed his New Albany location, but he did say that the bar was making half what he originally thought it would. (Although, Mouttet’s plan was to keep the bar open until the City of New Albany moved its headquarters across the street).
The new bar coming to Main Street, called Double Barrel, will be similar to Match, but without the cigar smoking, which Ray said limited the establishment’s appeal.
“I know not everyone enjoys a cigar or the smoke,” she said. “Some people can’t bring their pregnant wives in here. So, you know, those things, now that that’s not going to be here, we hope to invite these people in that are actually against smoking.”
Double Barrel’s owners are going for an upper class lounge feel, but one that’s welcoming.
