Posts in multiple Galveston Facebook groups, including Galveston Talk and Galveston Island Crime Watch, showed several fire trucks outside the bar, located directly across Seawall Boulevard from the Historic Pleasure Pier. No one was injured, according to multiple reports.
The fire reportedly started in the apartment above the bar. Chron is awaiting confirmation from Galveston police regarding possible arrests. Happily, the bar’s feline mascot, Pauline, was said to be safe and sound and “well fed.”
“Basically what happened is we were all sitting there—we had just gotten back from looking at houses—and Tiffany [Robert’s show director de la Vega] comes running in to say that there’s smoke coming from upstairs,” bartender and events coordinator Terry Michael Fuller told Chron Thursday. “Myself and one other person followed her up there. Tiffany got to the top with a fire extinguisher first [and] sprayed the fire that was going on, but there was so much smoke that we couldn’t tell if it was put out or not.
“Then we came back downstairs; there was still tons of smoke coming, so Tiffany called the fire department,” Fuller continued. “The fire department showed up, so that way we wanted to make sure that the fire was actually out. They made everybody leave the building from the bar downstairs. They went up there and made sure it was completely extinguished, and then the power people came out and cut off the main power to the building.”
Cyndi Hood, a friend of the bar and president of the Galveston Thursday Happy Hour Club, told Chron Thursday that bystanders acted quickly enough to thwart major damage to the bar.
“Several have worked tirelessly to get bar back on their feet so this was a near miss,” Hood said. “Fortunately [the] biggest struggle was getting the electric back on.”
According to Hood, an electrician was at the bar Wednesday night. The backyard pool bar, which is on a separate electric meter, remained open, she said. However, Fuller was unsure whether either bar would be open Thursday.
Often called Texas’ oldest LGBTQ+bar, Robert’s more than 60-year-old history dates back to its original downtown location between Market and Mechanic streets. Namesake owner Robert Mainor, who died in 2022, opened the current location around 1970. (At that time, its across-the-street neighbor was the legendary Flagship Hotel.)
Earlier this year, the community raised more than $20,000 to cover desperately needed repairs that, without the benefit, could have forced the bar’s closure.