TAMPA — At this bar, it’s easy to get into the holiday spirits.
Joy Bar has the usual decorations: Christmas lights, even a Santa. And the establishment stays open Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.
Here’s the catch: the décor never changes.
Liquor Depot owner Trey Lawson converted the dive bar to a year-round holiday haven. Around this time of year, he sees an uptick of boozy business when patrons want holiday drinks while wearing ugly sweaters.
Lawson took over the combined Liquor Depot and dive bar from his father in 2018. When he crunched the numbers, he found the dive bar was barely profitable. He considered blowing out the wall and converting the space into a larger liquor store. But a pre-COVID trip to Orlando with his wife changed his mind.
“We went to Frosty’s, an all-the-time Christmas bar that unfortunately didn’t survive,” Lawson said. “But I remember walking in and being like, ‘This is fun.’
It’s silly and tacky. … And it kind of popped back in my mind. And I was like, ‘I’m going Christmas.’”
While Lawson calls it a “crazy concept,” to embrace, he’s not someone obsessed with Christmas. He’s a fan of the holiday, and many of the movies the dive bar references, but he doesn’t necessarily consider it a personal passion.
“I just kind of thought it would be fun and different and something that Tampa didn’t have,” he said. “I’ve never been asked what my favorite (Christmas movie) is, but I like ‘Elf.’ That’s a good one. I need to get a Buddy (The Elf) for the bar.”
Lawson originally planned to install a projector to show Christmas classics on a loop. But since it is still a dive bar, most people want sports anyway.
He said that since it is a neighborhood watering hole, there are still plenty of regulars. But in December — as well as “Christmas in July” — there are plenty of new faces. Joy Bar will run promotions all month: Anyone wearing a Christmas sweater in December gets a free Fireball shot.
While it’s always Christmas season at Joy Bar, Lawson said he wanted it to remain a dive bar, especially in price.
“Ultra cheap where we have $4 Tito’s and $3 for High Noon’s,” he said.
He also wanted the bar’s bourbon selection to stand out.
“I would go into bars and restaurants, being a big whiskey guy myself, and I would try something and they’re like all right $50 for an ounce,” Lawson said. “I was like this is ridiculous, I know what this bottle cost, I know exactly how it comes out. So (I wanted this place) being super cheap, being focused on the bourbon selection, and then just being fun and being different.”
Different being always in the Christmas spirit, even when Lawson channeled his inner Clark Griswold and stapled the thousands of blinking lights to the ceiling himself.
“You know, we have the neighborhood crowd coming all the time, and then with social media, we’ve had some videos go viral and people share them and then we have a whole bunch of new faces for the holiday season,” Lawson said.
“It was 100% a crazy concept that I wanted to do,” he said, “And if it didn’t do well, which I was actually not expecting it to, but I was okay with it if it didn’t. I knew it would be super fun though. It was going to be unique, so I sat in that bar with a staple gun for more hours than I can count.
“And we got through the (first) holiday season and here we are just weeks before Christmas.”