CALGARY — After going away for a little bit, a Calgary sports bar is coming home this weekend.
Home and Away is holding its grand reopening from Thursday to Sunday on First Street S.W., having vacated their original location on 17th Avenue S.W. due to increasing rent, high property taxes and ongoing construction along the stretch of road.
“The business was sound, we should have been doing well enough to survive,” said co-owner Pete Emes.
“But when you pile up all the factors, the economy, the construction, the property tax, it’s just one thing after another. A business our size, oftentimes they can’t survive that, so we had to be nimble,
“We basically had to adapt in order to survive, so we found a new location with better rent, better property tax and we’re not dealing with any construction over here. We timed it so we’d be back for hockey season.”
Home and Away is known for its sports-bar roots with games for adults, and now, Calgary's only Shuffleboard Club, located in the bottom floor of the new location.
“We’ve got shuffleboard, we’ve got a full, custom basketball game. There’s basically three levels so there’s a lot of great nooks and crannies and this place has a DIY feel to it. There’s a lot of love inside these walls.”
The move was a homecoming of sorts for Emes and the ownership group. Also co-owner of the HiFi Club on 10th Avenue S.W., Emes is one-half of the Smalltown DJs — along with Mike Grimes — which got their start spinning at the now-defunct Night Gallery on the same block as the new Home and Away.
“We have a lot of history on this block, we know the block, we love the block and the proximity to the ‘Dome, it’s just an extra for us," said Emes.
