The owners of The Sports Bar, a staple on State Street since 1993, may be looking to lease the property to a new buyer, according to a former employee.
Kathy DeVoe, the bar’s general manager for the 15 years it was open, said that the proprietors, Don Jackson and Kenny Kapikian, are searching for new tenants, and that they have an interested party looking at the property this weekend.
Jackson and Kapikian were originally considering opening with a new store manager at the start of the season, but those plans are now at a standstill, she said.
According to DeVoe, The Sports Bar closes every summer because of the “slower business during [the summer] months.” The bar normally reopens in August when students come back for the new semester.
This year opening was scheduled for Aug. 1, according to DeVoe, who had previously decided she would not return as general manager. After her decision was made, Jackson and Kapikian, who are also her brothers, made the call not to re-open in order to look for a new manager, she said.
After rounds of interviews, however, the owners decided that the bar would not re-open, because candidates for general bar manager were not “suitable for the job,” according to DeVoe.
There also may have been financial issues involved, according to Paul Liggieri, who was previously head of security at The Sports Bar.
Toward the end of last year, Liggieri, a senior majoring in political science, said that he noticed business “slowly starting to decline.”
Liggieri also said that The Sports Bar’s management was having a “hard time finding buyers because no one wants office buildings on State Street.”