The Barstool Fund - Freddie's Beach Bar
Up next: Freddie's Beach Bar (Arlington, VA)
Freddie's is Northern Virginia's only LGBTQ+, straight friendly restaurant and bar. They were also voted among the top 100 brunches in the country by Open Table.
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Dave,
Just as the reality of being forced to close the doors of our iconic neighborhood bar was settling in, you magically appeared last night before my eyes on the Tucker Carlson show ….. a potential God-send! I’m the co-owner (together with my brother Freddie) of Freddie’s Beach Bar and Restaurant (Freddie’s), the only LGBT bar in Northern Virginia, which has been in operation since March, 2001.
After your uplifting segment on the show, our employees scrambled last night and all day today to put together a very short video encapsulating “our story” concerning the devastating impact of Covid-19 on our bar…. click on following link: https://youtu.be/5XzqQaCub8k
Just a few blocks from the Pentagon, Freddie’s has had a long and proud history of being the one “safe space” for the military LGBT community. In addition to Karaoke, Drag Shows and Community Events, the bar/restaurant is well known for its family-friendly weekend Brunch Buffets. Freddie’s has always stayed open on every holiday to ensure that everyone has a “family meal” and our yearly toy drive in conjunction with the local police department is always a hit.
Up until March, 2020, an average Friday night at Freddie’s would see as many as 300 customers and employ 15 full-time equivalent staff. Since March, 2020, successive orders from the VA Governor’s office related to the Covid-19 pandemic have had increasing devastating impacts on our business. The most recent order issued on November 13, 2020 that no alcohol could be consumed in any restaurant of bar after 10 PM was the straw that broke our back.
Once a packed, thriving neighborhood business, Freddie’s (now on the eve of our 20th anniversary) is now operating at a massive deficit just to keep our employees on the payroll. In light of our dire situation, neither my brother Freddie nor I (the two co-owners of the bar) are presently on the payroll and our landlord has graciously agreed to reduce our rent in half for the months of December and January.
With the above as a background story, coupled with the above video link, we are humbly requesting partial payroll support from your newly-created Barstool Fund to keep our employees on the payroll for a month and prevent us from having to close our beloved bar.
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Many thanks in advance for your consideration.
Rich