JACKSON HOLE, WYO – As time ticks down on the Town Square Tavern, owners Steve and Mike Mattheis are still trying to find a soft place to land.
After a falling out with their landlord over the space they’ve occupied on the town square for more than a decade, the brothers Mattheis also got in Dutch with the State Liquor Division and the town over their liquor license.
The Mattheis Company is the holder of a coveted Retail Liquor license. Those are the least restrictive liquor licenses and almost never become available from the town since it is allowable for those to be transferred between entities—at times for reported six-figure sums.
The Mattheis brothers were told by the state liquor division that their liquor license had become invalid since it was not “attached” to a legitimate space. Mattheis Company’s lease ends at the end of this month. Yet, the state liquor division continued to sell alcohol to the Town Square Tavern for resale.
Steve Mattheis originally told town councilors he was trying to find another spot to rent and would move the liquor license there if he could only park it for a while. Town electeds were divided over whether this was a good idea, given the state’s feelings on whether the Mattheis brothers even held a valid license.
When Mattheis then changed his plans at the last minute and said he had a buyer for his liquor license, councilors became even more skittish at a meeting to discuss the situation last Monday night.
Councilman Jim Stanford wanted answers as to why the Mattheises had falsified information on a liquor license renewal application to give the impression they had a valid lease in place. Steve Mattheis claimed he was just following orders from his attorney.
Mayor Pete Muldoon also said he was sympathetic to the situation the Mattheis brothers have now found themselves in, but he too said he was “trying to wrap [his] head around why they would sign two different leases in one day.”
Councilmembers Don Frank and Hailey Morton Levinson said they were uncomfortable putting Steve Mattheis on the spot Monday without legal counsel present. It was then the town council decided to schedule another meeting to hear the matter.
Restaurateur Gavin Fine is set to take over the space at Town Square Tavern on November 1. He has already announced the place will be a classic Bar & Grill, serving meals with drinks. There would be no live music program or DJs as the Tavern had done.
But when Fine failed to get one of the three Bar & Grill liquor licenses awarded by the town recently, he approached the Mattheis Company under the name of Get Loose LLC and apparently worked out a deal to buy its retail license. That purchase is on hold until a special town meeting scheduled for October 30 takes place.
At that meeting, councilors will determine whether they believe the Mattheis brothers are in fact in possession of a valid license or whether they will revoke the license and reissue it.
For the Mattheises, selling the license would at least mean some revenue from a business operation that is now without a bar. For Fine, paying what could be hundreds of thousands of dollars for a license he might be able to scoop up from the town for $1,500 is a gamble he is apparently willing to take. Should the town take possession of the retail liquor license and reallocate it, there is no guarantee Fine would get it, and he’s already watched a Bar & Grill license slip away after 15 business owners came forward for a chance at one.
Audrey Cohen Davis, town attorney, is working through the legalities of how a transfer of liquor license could be worked out.
