Dear Tailgate Taphouse: Thanks for the Memories

Another sports bar is calling it quits and I'm really sad to see this one go. 

When we found out that our friend Ted Challenger bought the old Cheerleaders near Ann Morrison Park two years ago, we were stoked.  With a few dozen helping hands from his other Downtown Boise bars, he and his staff were able to transform Cheerleaders into The Tailgate Taphouse in about a week, opening under that name in July 2016.  It quickly became one of our favorite neighborhood hangouts.

On any given Tuesday, you could find my teammates and I chowing down on their mouth watering $1 tacos after a hard track workout. Tailgate was one of the few sports bars that showed UFC fights without a cover, so if you went there on fight night, there's a pretty good chance you would've seen a few members of our bridal party having beers and watching the fights together.

I'll miss those evenings when Tailgate Taphouse closes for good on Saturday. Challenger announced the Tailgate's final days on Facebook last week, saying that it was a difficult decision to make. The business was successful, but he felt his sweet spot was more in the bar business than food service.  Tailgate's already been sold to a new owner. When we were there for the final Taco, Bingo, Drinko night, one of their employees let it slip who bought it and I think you'll like what's coming next.

Until then, I just want to thank Ted and his staff for the fun memories we had at The Tailgate.

Thank you for inventing the Taco Eating competition.  My fiance's found his true calling in life. He was stoked to be in the first Taco Eating finals on Cinco De Mayo a few years ago and we'll never let him live down the fact that he blew the championship, by starting to laugh and spitting tacos all over David Munson's suit. We're just proud that he was able to redeem himself by winning the final competition last night!

Thank you for being our hang out for UFC. I don't get to some of my friends outside of our running group regularly, but fight night brought a lot of them together.

Thank you for not throwing us out of Taco, Bingo, Drinko when my friend Kimberly proved that she was indeed the LOUDEST bingo player known to man.

Thank you for letting Paint Nite take over the back room.  It gave my girls and I a chance to prove we can still make a decent looking painting even though we have little to no artistic talent!

And thank you for the greatest Townsquare Media Christmas Party we've ever had.  Your staff was so good to us during our Casino Night last December and our management will have to work really hard to top that party this year!