A longtime staple of TCU and its community is scheduled to close
As TCU swells and grows, any resulting discomfort will soon need a trip farther afield to celebrate triumphs, or drown one’s sorrows, with the good stuff, as a legendary local liquor store is scheduled to close.
You have time to prepare for what should include a moment of silence, or better yet pour one out, for Kings Liquor, which is basically on TCU’s campus, when it closes in 2027. Plan wedding dates accordingly.
This planned closure is not related to the recent reports in The Financial Times and other publications that said drink makers are sitting on a “lake’s worth” of unsold spirits, which in ordinary circumstances should translate into coveted waterfront property. The decrease in sales has put a strain on retailers globally.
The manager of the Kings Liquor on West Berry Street, Stewart Hellman, said the store was sold to TCU in 2023, and the location will close in October 2027. According to Hellman, store owner Jack Labovitz plans to retire, and the university made him an offer he could not refuse.
“I know it’s a ways away,” Hellman said, “but we’re all kinda sad about it.”
A liquor store that does brisk, year-round business closing is akin to seeing a Starbucks or a McDonald’s shut down. It doesn’t happen.
This is happening because this Kings location sits on prime real estate where TCU wants to expand its campus, as it plans to add more buildings, students, faculty and employees over the next several years. This Kings opened in 1955, when TCU and this neighborhood were much smaller. The land was available and cheap, and a liquor store within a short walk from a college campus is a 100-proof business model.
The building itself looks like it was designed by an architect who graduated from the Soviet Union School of Design. This Kings is for those who love cement cinder blocks and concrete. What it lacks in architectural charm it makes up for in location, and size.
Its main area is 8,000 square feet, with an additional 5,000 square feet in the back. None of that matters. This is about the dirt. It sits directly in the eye of a targeted area that TCU needs.
As TCU, and universities all over the nation, expand, familiar staples of campuses and surrounding neighborhoods come down, sometimes in the middle of the night to avoid conflict. New buildings go up, and the incoming class of students has no idea what they are missing.
For those with long memories who are sentimental and nostalgic, watching old familiar places go down from a college experience is a sad development.
Last year, The Pub, a popular bar that was also effectively on the school’s campus, closed over a disagreement with the landlord, which is not TCU. That space went to the adjacent Buffalo Bros. restaurant, which used it to expand its seating capacity.
Other longtime regulars in this neighborhood, such as The Aardvark and the Oui Lounge, are gone, a development that has changed this campus to a point where increasingly it looks little like it did 25 years ago.
A liquor store this close to a college campus is a source of scores of memories, and material that TCU alums would rather their children never see or hear. It starts with a tale of summoning the courage to try to buy beer with a fake ID.
“Kings has been notorious to check IDs of everyone,” said TCU alum BJ Warren, who graduated in A Long Time Ago. “I got checked there recently, and I’m in my 40s. When I was in college [and 21], I was there often enough they stopped checking mine.”
It continues with runs to buy a six-pack, a bottle of Boone’s, or a keg of the worst beer ever brewed; classics like “Natty” or “The Beast.”
“I was trying to buy more ingredients for Jell-O shots [there],” said one TCU alum who asked to go by Amy Married With Kids Now. “Me and a few Sigma Kappas were about 30 deep that we’d been taking in their kitchen over winter break. I never took another Jell-O shot again after that night.”
A liquor store this close to a college campus is not exactly common. While the optics aren’t great, it can provide a bit of a breather in that the students aren’t driving. This location also makes for an ideal spot to load up for a tailgate.
Like other locations, a liquor store on a growing campus is the product of a bygone era, and stands in the way of progress. No, TCU does not plan to operate a liquor store. That is one revenue-generating asset universities and colleges have not added to their portfolios, although tomorrow is a new day.
Don’t be surprised if some entrepreneurial type recognizes the “need” created by this closure to open a new liquor store close by.
It will be fine. It just won’t be Kings.
