Houston acts as a cultural capital bridging the South and Southwest, with some of the best museums in the country. Other central Houston neighborhoods, including gay-popular Montrose and up-and-coming Midtown, have also seen big changes for the better, helping turn the nation's fourth-largest city into a lively and downright stylish getaway. Its once staid, business-oriented downtown has become a trendy district of restaurants, clubs, shops, condos and hip hotels, along with an architecturally stunning baseball stadium. “Make a conscious effort to be like, ‘You know what? I haven't been there in a minute and I want to support them.’ Especially now with the capitalist society that we live in, and how everything is getting expensive, and how everyone is struggling, know that you have the power.The (Not So) Straight Facts About Houston Your guide to the gay side of the Bayou CityĪ cosmopolitan city that blends Western and Southern heritage and style, Houston has been one of America's great boomtowns of the past decade.
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“Support the places that you love,” he says. “What matters is sitting behind the DJ booth and listening to the first stories of like, ‘I never thought I would be here, but I did it right here … This is where I first found myself,’” he says.Īnd Alpuche says he hopes Angelenos continue to patronize their favorite local businesses. “Going into more debt is probably … the plan.”Īlpuche says that to help face the financial hurdles, he’s constantly reminding himself of why he’s in the business: to build a nurturing community where people support one another. You pay $2,000 a month for the rest of your life to keep it up,” he says. “It's like signing a deal with the devil. He’s considered launching another GoFundMe fundraiser, but he says he’d rather take out more loans, effectively consolidating all that he owes. But it's very much a local, small business.”
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“We are a true, forgive the term, but mom-and-pop, even though I'm a single father. “We don't make a half million dollars a year, we don't make half of that a year, we don't even make a quarter of that a year,” he explains.
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That’s because the bar is making just enough cash to cover daily operating costs. Right now, Alpuche says he’s making minimum payments on his loans, but it’s not enough to make a dent in the debt. Small businesses nationwide borrowed more than $300 billion in disaster relief loans to weather COVID-related lockdowns, and they’re on the hook to pay it back. It’s not just the Alpuche and the Redline. We're gonna take a 30-year loan out, I'll figure out a way to pay it so we survive.’” Between back rent, water, power, and other bills, he owes $487,000 – far more than he can imagine actually paying back.Īlpuche took out PPP and disaster relief loans, but he’s learned that some of them come with a price: “You think a disaster relief loan is something that's like, ‘Yay, it's gonna help you, you don't have to pay interest,’” he says.īut no: “The interest is higher than a mortgage, the payments are as long as the mortgage.
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According to owner Oliver Alpuche, he’s facing a mountain of debt that he accumulated during that long closure. Bartenders sling drinks, emcees host drag performances, and customers party in a safe space for LA’s LGBTQ+ community.īut the Redline has a financial hangover. Hanging out at downtown LA gay bar Redline, you’d think 15 months of pandemic closure was a distant memory, now that bars have been reopened for almost a year.