Texas Community Left 'Devastated' After Only LGBTQ+ Bar's Abrupt Close
advocate.comA central Texas LGBTQ+ bar's owner abruptly fired all employees on New Year's Day and shuttered the business, leaving a community devastated and without a safe space for LGBTQ+ people.Staff and management of the Stonewall Warehouse in San Marcos, a college town between San Antonio and Austin, were told by owner Jamie Frailicks on Sunday that they no longer had a place to work, former manager Lena Jacobs tells The Advocate.After arriving 30 minutes early to meet the owner without a care in the world, she says the two exchanged initial pleasantries and light-hearted banter before heading upstairs when Frailicks's demeanor changed."He told me that this was about to be a hard meeting and that he was shutting the bar down," Jacobs, who had been managing the Stonewall Warehouse for five years, says. "It just blindsided me out of nowhere."She continues, "I sat there, and he talked to me for ten minutes.
He cried and told me how upset he was because, not because of the business but because of me, how much he appreciated me and all this stuff.
And again, I just sat there and cried and listened."Her response to Frailicks was brief, and she excused herself to go outside for fresh air before the staff arrived."I said I need to go downstairs and get some air because I knew now that he was about to tell my entire staff this, and I wasn't going to let him blindside them like he just did me," she tells The Advocate through a cracked voice and tears.Her team gathered at one of their homes to absorb the shock and be together after they were told. "It was like you go after a funeral, go with your friends, and just sit and talk about all the good times you had and cry," she says."That's what we did for hours," Jacobs adds.Frailicks declined.
