Looking to renovate the Johnny’s Bar and Grill in downtown Hollister, the private business is requesting donations in what it’s calling a new “Kickstarter” campaign online that launched Wednesday.
“There’s a lot that needs to be addressed,” said Johnny’s owner Charisse Tyson, who has owned the bar since 1996, in a phone interview Wednesday. “The restaurant business is in the tank.”
She said after new restaurants moved downtown and older customers have passed on, business is slower than it once was.
“A lot of people think of us as a biker bar,” she said.
But she said that with the renovation, she hopes to bring in new customers.
“This idea got me excited again,” she said.
She hopes the new renovation – which will include new bar stools, equipment, flooring and new paint, among other changes – will create a “more cohesive” environment.
Tyson said she wants to highlight the bar’s history more and is looking for old photos of the business from the inside.
The bar is hoping to raise more than $36,000 for this effort. The campaign is called “Sprucing up Johnny’s – The Birth Place of the American Biker.”
Tyson hired a professional videographer company, Lucid Sound and Picture, to produce an almost five-minute, documentary-style video about the history of Johnny’s. The video highlights the Tysons’ struggle with the bar, as well as her husband Tommy Tyson’s struggle with sobriety over the years.
“This bar is a very important part of this community. We team up with the community and YMCA, Compassion Pregnancy and the Homeless Coalition,” Tyson says in the video.
With the return of the motorcycle rally this summer, after a four-year hiatus, Johnny’s is better off financially than it was. But she said more needs to be done to fix the business.
“I plan on showing people what we’re doing,” Tyson said about the fundraising effort. “It’s a big job. You have to stay on top of it.”
She hopes to tap into Boozefighters motorcycle club members from around the world, referring to the club formed after the 1947 biker event. Johnny’s is known as the Boozefighters’ home. If all of the “boozefighters” gave $5 a piece, the project would be fully funded, she said.
The campaign will last until Jan. 28, and if the $36,000 is not raised, the renovation project is not funded by Kickstarter. The number of days the fundraiser will last – 47 – is symbolic of the year the biker riots took place.
“Forty-seven sounded like the right number,” she said.
For more information and a video about the fundraiser, go to kickstarter.com/projects.
