AUSTIN (KXAN) — Popular board game bar Vigilante has turned to the community in the midst of a financial pickle, asking for help raising tens of thousands of dollars in just a few weeks.
Sound familiar?
That’s because something very similar happened to the LGBTQ+ bar and nightclub Cheer Up Charlies earlier this fall. Cheer Up’s ended up raising the money needed, then shortly thereafter announced that it had been bought by a Florida hospitality and entertainment group called Pride Holdings Group.
This time, it’s Vigilante Gastropub & Games behind a crowdfunding campaign. The bar posted on social media earlier this week saying it needed help raising money after “an unexpected $25,000 HVAC replacement and a tough summer season.”
The bar is also looking to raise an additional $25,000 to “aid in longer-term stability.” The fundraiser is active on Ko-Fi and was at 10% of its goal as of Thursday afternoon.
“We’re all living in unprecedented times,” the bar wrote in the social posts and in an email to newsletter subscribers. “Vigilante has always pushed the status quo for a restaurant, striving to operate ethically in a challenging industry. We’re asking y’all to help us push that boulder a little further up the hill by choosing to support us despite the times. If you have the means to support the community of this small local business, we’d love the chance to keep doing what we do best — fostering friendships, sharing stories, and uniting Austin locals over food, drinks, and games.”
The bar also that as it plans for the future, it’s “open to conversations with like-minded community partners interested in carrying this work forward,” and invited small business leaders who love Vigilante to reach out via email at hello@vigilantebar.com.
UT business professor talks about why ‘third space’ businesses rely on community support
Ben Bentzin, an associate professor of instruction in marketing at The University of Texas at Austin’s McCombs School of Business, talked about some of the struggles that could lead to emergency financial strains for Austin businesses.
“We are at a period right now of great financial instability,” Bentzin said. “These tariffs that are on-again-off-again create uncertainty. We’ve seen interest rates be higher than they have in the past, which means that costs of access to the capital to be able to keep these businesses going becomes more of a challenge.
“And with the popularity of Austin and the fact that new businesses keep opening, we find ourselves in this position where there is increasing competition, rising rents, mounting debt, and that, for the smaller businesses that were sort of marginally profitable before, can turn them to the point where they are no longer sustainable without community support.”
Bentzin also talked specifically about Cheer Up’s and Vigilante, and why businesses like them turn to the community for help through crowdfunding campaigns.
“These [fundraisers] aren’t incredibly common, but they’re not unique either,” Bentzin said. “There’s been instances of restaurants in San Antonio that have sort of faced these same challenges and also ran campaigns to raise funds. So it’s not common, but this is not the first time we’ve seen this.”
Bentzin said the vast majority of businesses are “going concerns,” meaning they’re turning a profit and are financially stable enough to operate indefinitely without risk of closure. He said typically, businesses that aren’t going concerns usually close.
He said there are exceptions, however, like Vigilante and Cheer Up’s. Bentzin said both places are what economists call “third places,” or community gathering spots.
“They not only are just businesses, but they’re actually community gathering spots where people come together,” Bentzin said. “And those are the types of businesses, if they’re struggling, but they have a strong sense of community, there are individuals in that community that don’t want to see it end, don’t want to see it go away, and they’re the ones that step up to fund these campaigns to make sure that their space continues to operate.”
Bentzin said third places are important because of the social presence and sense of community they offer people in wake of today’s “overwhelming presence of digital media.”
“I would say that Vigilante and Cheer Up Charlie’s are examples of those, where they do have a group of supporters that are willing to pay extra in the hopes that they can sustain that space and it won’t go away,” he added.
Bentzin acknowledged that Vigilante and Cheer Up’s had entirely different circumstances that led to the two businesses asking for help, but he said in general, many local businesses struggle financially in Austin, and countless have shut down, due to various economic reasons.
“Across Austin, we’re seeing that there are rising rents and that rising, escalating costs are making it difficult for businesses to raise their prices enough to be able to continue to operate profitably, as they did before,” Bentzin said. “So this is a challenge; we should expect to see more businesses struggling with these types of issues.”
Bentzin said crowdfunding is a good approach for small businesses that are hit with a “one-time” problem, but there’s a risk of what he called “donor fatigue” if a business asks for donations multiple times.
“The more of these campaigns that come forward, the more difficult it is to find supporters that are willing to keep opening their pocketbooks over and over again,” Bentzin said. “So businesses need to think carefully, ‘can I really just solve this one problem and then continue to be viable? Or do I need to change my business approach so that I can continue to operate at a cost where enough people are showing up in support that we can be viable on an ongoing basis?'”
Bentzin said when it does get to a point where a business needs to ask for community support, the business should be open and upfront with its community about what its needs are.
“Businesses are built on trust, and trust comes from transparency and doing the things you say you’re going to do,” he said.
KXAN reached out to Vigilante and Ko-Fi for additional information earlier this week. We will update this story if we hear back.
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