Café J will close after Texas Tech’s graduation weekend December 12-13 and will be torn down to be replaced by a student housing project, restaurant owner Chris Bourne told LubbockLights.com.
Café J has to vacate the property at 2605 19th Street by the end of the year. Much of the property – most recently known as the Godbold Center – was demolished in February of 2024.
Godbold Center demolition in February 2024. Credit: Staff photo.
In the near term, the restaurant’s fate is sealed. But there are future options, said Bourne.
The student housing project is proposed to have some retail space.
The new owner “asked me to stay and do something there,” Bourne said.
“I don’t know in the scenario if – what they have designed – Café J would work. But I can’t say that it won’t. It’s just kind of everything is still in the development stages,” Bourne said.
“It just would be a couple years down the road, but I think there’s opportunity to possibly do something back in that location,” he added.
LubbockLights.com asked about opening at some other location.
“I’ve been approached with that probably at least half a dozen times – maybe more than that. I think Café J is what Café J is because of where Café J was. I don’t know that you can open up Café J and it really be Café J anywhere else,” Bourne said.
It’s not impossible. He cited Harrigan’s as a place that closed for three years and came back at a different location.
“So, there’s maybe a possibility of doing something like that. It’s just finding an ideal situation and location,” Bourne said.
Café J’s history
Café J had live music over the years and was in a historic location between Texas Tech and the Tech Terrace Neighborhood.
“I think it was probably the atmosphere. … I just think it’s a really good date-night place,” Bourne said.
An archive screen capture of the restaurant’s website from 2008 said, “Café J is a direct descendant of The Grapevine Restaurant which was derived from a long-time downtown destination restaurant on the 20th floor of the Metro Tower, The Continental Room.”
Bourne made reference to restaurateur George Mayer.
“He had a place over there [2400 block of 20th Street] just down the street called The Grapevine. … It was a little hidden romantic spot back there. And he left there and opened up Café J’s,” Bourne said.
“They sold it to a friend of mine named Ed Price, who’s an attorney, and a guy named Bruce Jagger, who owns Mamarita’s,” Bourne said.
“Post-COVID, they just had enough and sold it to me. I had been in the restaurant business 20 years. I originally started – used to own – Conference Cafe on 4th and Indiana. They sold it to me and I’ve had it since 2021,” Bourne said.
Screen capture of Cafe J website from May 2008. Credit: web.archive.org
The Café J logo says it was established in 2001.
“The culture and the climate of Lubbock has changed since 2001, obviously. And it just wasn’t today what it was 25 years ago, understandably. But culturally, yes, it was very well received. It was just the people that were into that type of dining establishment probably had moved more south. Tech Terrace changed too. Every year, I’m sure it becomes a little bit more student populated and less professor, attorney and doctor populated. And so it’s just changed,” Bourne said.
COVID was a crushing blow
“I don’t know that anybody has ever come and told me I don’t like the food at Cafe J. So, I think the food was exceptional,” Bourne said.
COVID came along and restaurants could only serve takeout from mid-March 2020 through late April of that same year. Then they could only open to 25 percent capacity with restrictions varying until March 2021.
“The ability to do food just got decimated during COVID,” Bourne said.
Café J was not well positioned, Bourne said, adding, “It was not a great takeout restaurant.”
“Since I’ve owned it, we’ve lost 70 percent of our food business… Humans are creatures of habit. … In COVID, they started going to other places and it gets off their little daily routine or weekly routine or whatever,” Bourne said.
“The bar got much stronger and is what kept it in business,” Bourne said.
19th Street and sale of the property
“The world kind of got back to normal. And right after that, the construction on 19th then just absolutely decimated it again. And, it was only by the grace of God that it stayed in business,” Bourne said.
A portion of the 19th Street project in front of Café J started in June 2022 and wasn’t finished for more than a year-and-a-half.
“That was … just terrible for it. We’re out there negotiating with the road crew, like, ‘Hey, can you please leave us a turn in?’” Bourne said.
He quoted the response from someone on the road crew, “Well, they can just come around the back and go down 20th Street and then approach it from behind.”
He did get a turn in. But then, about the same time as that portion of 19th got fully back to normal, building owner George Hardberger got an offer to sell.
“I didn’t pay enough in rent to pay George’s property taxes. So, George told me from the get-go he was shopping it and wanted to sell it. … I think George is a great person. George was always as forthcoming with me as he possibly could,” Bourne said.
19th Street near Cafe J in October 2023 Credit: Staff photo.
History of the building
Lubbock doctors Frank B. Malone, Olan Key and Sam C. Arnett built Plains Hospital and Clinic with beds for 12 patients at that location in 1937, according to the Lubbock County Historical Commission.
“In 1939 the doctors, wanting to devote more time to their practices, approached the Catholic Church about buying the hospital. On July 15, 1939 the Sisters of Saint Joseph from Orange, California purchased the facility,” the commission said in a 2015 social media post.
“By the late 1960s, St. Mary’s had built and moved to a larger, more modern hospital at 22nd and Nashville. Today it is known as Covenant Medical Center – Lakeside,” the commission said. It’s now Covenant Children’s Hospital.
It served as the Alhambra Hotel starting in late 1973, according to a document on the City of Lubbock website. From 1977 to 1989 the building served as a private venue called the University City Club.
In 1994, Carlton Godbold renovated the building and renamed it the Godbold Cultural Center. It was home to a business called Chrome – owned by local businessman Steven Spiegelberg.
In 2021, Godbold sold it to Generator I LLC (Hardberger). Pinecrest (the company turning it into a student housing development) officially took ownership in June.
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