LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) – Skooners Bar and Grill held one last hurrah Sunday night before closing its doors for good.
Mark Garland, the owner of what many have come to see as an oasis in central Lubbock, died this week.
“One of my favorite parts about Mark is he called himself a captain,” said Cousin Morin, beverage director for West Family Hospitality. “A captain makes sure that everyone on the boat is safe. Makes sure that at some point in time we see dry land, knows the purpose of why we’re out there. But more importantly, keeps us in a steady direction. That’s what I think I value most about him: he was a captain. He kept us in a solid direction.”
Garland was born in Huntington Beach, California. He worked as a pit boss in Las Vegas when Jim Bob Jordan, of Lubbock’s Jordan family, recruited him to the Hub City in 1984.
“He describes this tall, big cowboy sitting across from him, big ol’ huge bucket hat, just oozing Texas, right,” Morin said. “And the guy kind of kept watching him for a couple of hours and finally the guy approaches him and tells him, I’ve been watching you all night, the way you move, the way you keep an eye on things. I need that. I need that in my life.”
Garland spent the next 12 years working for the Jordan family before branching out on his own with Whaler’s Bay, Scuttlebutts and eventually Skooners in 1996.
Skooners became a beloved Lubbock institution, offering cold beer, massive burgers and what many have described as a home away from home.
“From his days back in Vegas to all of his catering to everything he did here, he was just trying to really kind of maintain a spot for people to belong,” Morin said. “I can’t tell you how many times I would watch Mark literally see somebody that he’d noticed having a bad day, or he caught a difference in their habits. And that was a day that maybe drinks were comped. Or that’s a day that maybe, maybe we feed them.”
Garland set people up for success and helped inspire others to follow their dreams. Morin is one of those people. He did jobs and gigs for Garland and eventually went down the path of owning his own businesses.
“For a brief moment in time, a family builds itself, takes care of itself, and graduates,” Morin said. “And the next class comes in. And I think that was awesome. And all those years, I can’t tell you how many different classes I see move through it. And they all independently have different success stories. And it’s built basically upon the culture that was allowed to exist there.”
Garland was also an Ironman athlete in the 1990s. He ran marathons, biked and swam.
He continued to cater Ironman competitions in Lubbock even after he left that community. Morin says that’s a testament to his character.
“That’s kind of where I really started to see him as a person,” Morin said. “Even after he left the [Ironman] community, he still took care of them so well. We watched him go above and beyond for the friendships he’d made.”
“I think Mark’s presence was often read wrong because he was a quiet man who stood in the back of the room with his arms crossed,” Morin said. “I don’t think he was judging. I honestly think he was just kind of loving what he saw.”
Garland leaves behind three daughters and a wife, Michelle.
Funeral arrangements have not yet been announced.
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