{"id":4311,"date":"2025-10-15T05:35:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T05:35:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/4311\/"},"modified":"2025-10-15T05:35:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T05:35:08","slug":"beloved-texas-gay-bar-sold-to-florida-investment-firm-after-financial-issues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/4311\/","title":{"rendered":"Beloved Texas gay bar sold to Florida investment firm after financial issues"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just a few months after an impassioned plea for help<\/a> led to a community rallying around them, one of Texas’ favorite queer hangouts is being sold.<\/p>\n

Cheer Up Charlie’s, Austin’s legendary LGBTQ+ venue, has been sold to Pride Holdings Group<\/a>, a Florida-based investment firm that owns gay venues around the nation. Yes, you heard it right: Cheer Ups has been acquired by Big Gay.<\/p>\n

As part of the deal, founders Tamara Spence and Maggie Lea will “remain in leadership positions,” but they will step down from ownership.<\/p>\n

“We’re excited to have a parent company that stabilizes us,” Lea said in a press release on Tuesday.<\/a> “Our missions aligned, and we felt that this was an amazing stroke of luck and fate.”<\/p>\n

Pride Holdings owns several queer bars and nightclubs around the country, including spots in Sydney, Australia; Chicago; Cincinnati, and its home base of Florida. The company called Cheer Up Charlie’s “Austin’s #1 LGBTQ+ bar” and said that it plans to franchise the bar, bringing locations to Houston, Dallas and San Antonio “within 24 months.”<\/p>\n

“Cheer Up Charlie’s isn’t just a bar-it’s a symbol of community, resilience, and celebration,” Pride Holdings CEO Mike Barrett said in a release. “We’re 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.”<\/p>\n

Cheer Up Charlie’s first began as a vegan food truck in East Austin in 2009 before opening as a bar the next year. In 2014, the spot moved to the Red River Cultural District, where it now resides.<\/p>\n

While the sale will ensure that Cheer Up’s will stay open at its Red River location, questions about its future remain. Lea and Spence told Austin Monthly’s Bryan Parker<\/a> that Pride Holdings had reached out to the couple after they made a plea for help in August. That month, the owners had posted that they were $58,000 behind on rent and in danger of being locked out. Lea and Spence posted just a few days later that they had raised more than $60,000 to pay back what they owed.<\/p>\n

On Instagram, some community members were critical. “Pretty messed up thing to do after accepting a ton of money from the community,” one person wrote in the comments of a KUT post about the news<\/a>. “This sucks. Randos in Florida aren’t going to care for this space the way they should,” another said.<\/p>\n

One big Austin account was particularly critical. KUC_BigNews<\/a>, a parody account of NPR affiliate KUT, posted a screenshot of the announcement on their story with the comment “lol.” The account, as well as others on Instagram, pointed out that Pride Holdings’ Instagram account was previously following the accounts of Donald Trump Jr., country singer Morgan Wallen, and influencer Mr. Beast, although when Chron viewed Pride Holdings’ following list, it listed the group as following 0 other accounts.<\/p>\n

Pride Holdings is a publicly traded investment company<\/a> that has had several rebrands and sells stock on the over-the-counter market, a loosely regulated financial market.\u00a0According to a CNBC stock listing and Pride Holdings’ website<\/a>, the company was previously known as Parliament House Enterprises, Inc., an apparent reference to a historic gay resort in Orlando, Florida, that closed in 2020. Earlier this year, the company appointed a new CEO, Michael Barrett, “to lead strategic growth in the LGBTQ+ Market,” according to a press release<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Before it entered into the gay bar business, Pride Holdings previously went by several names and has gone through several changes, according to a brief look at the company’s financial history<\/a>. A financial disclosure document found online shows that in 2020<\/a>, Parliament House acquired the assets of a Washington THC company called Hempstract, which was renovating a historic ICBM Titan Missile facility site in Washington “to produce high-quality THC-Free products.”<\/p>\n

It’s unclear what, if anything, any of this has to do with owning gay bars. But these people now own Cheer Up Charlie’s. And they want to bring it to a city near you, we guess.<\/p>\n

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This article originally published at Beloved Texas gay bar sold to Florida investment firm after financial issues<\/a>.<\/p>\n