{"id":3117,"date":"2025-10-14T16:10:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T16:10:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/3117\/"},"modified":"2025-10-14T16:10:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T16:10:08","slug":"cheer-up-charlies-sold-to-firm-buying-up-lgbtq-properties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/3117\/","title":{"rendered":"Cheer Up Charlies sold to firm buying up LGBTQ properties"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cheer Up Charlies has been sold to an investment firm<\/a> focused on LGBTQ+ entertainment properties.<\/p>\n

As part of the deal with Pride Holdings, Maggie Lea and Tamara Hoover stepped down as owners of the Red River venue, although they will remain in leadership positions.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re excited to have a parent company that stabilizes us,\u201d Lea said Tuesday. \u201cOur missions aligned, and we felt that this was an amazing stroke of luck and fate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pride Holdings has been acquiring and managing queer venues, including bars and nightclubs in Chicago, Cincinnati and Florida, where the company is based.<\/p>\n

\u201cCheer Up Charlie\u2019s isn\u2019t just a bar\u2014it\u2019s a symbol of community, resilience, and celebration,\u201d Pride Holdings CEO Mike Barrett said in a statement. \u201cWe\u2019re honored to carry forward its incredible legacy while giving it the resources to grow and thrive. This acquisition reflects our commitment to preserving the soul of LGBTQ+ spaces while elevating them to new levels of visibility, impact, and profitability.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lea said Cheer Up Charlies would become a franchised brand and expand to other cities in Texas by mid-2026. She said she was excited about that and wants \u201cit to live on for as long as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Tamara<\/p>\n

Tamara Hoover and Maggie Lea, seen here in 2020, will maintain leadership roles with Cheer Up Charlies.<\/p>\n

The venue has faced years of financial difficulties particularly during the pandemic, Lea said. Over the summer, she warned supporters they were behind $58,000 on rent<\/a> and would be forced to close if they could not come up with the money. The owners launched a fundraising campaign and were able to raise the money within a week.<\/p>\n

Lea said Pride Holdings saw the fundraiser and reached out to say it was buying up bars to save them from closure. The idea, she said, was to \u201ccreate a bigger group to have a voice\u201d and stop the \u201cpush toward silencing\u201d LGBTQ+ and marginalized communities.<\/p>\n

She said she and Hoover felt the pitch was authentic and began negotiations with Pride last month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cheer Up Charlies has been sold to an investment firm focused on LGBTQ+ entertainment properties. As part of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3118,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,3584,134,133,3585,3578,3579,3580,3581,3582,3577,3583,216],"class_list":["post-3117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-gayborhood","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-austin-pride","tag-cheerup-charlies","tag-lgbtq-austin","tag-lgbtq-venues","tag-maggie-lea","tag-pride-holdings","tag-public-stock-market","tag-tamara-hoover","tag-tx"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3117\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}