Toby Keith’s Syracuse Bar Disappears in the Dark

In a move reminiscent of when the Colts packed up and snuck out of Baltimore and moved to Indy in the middle of the night on March 28, 1984, Toby Keith's bar in Syracuse has also packed up and moved in the dark. 

At midnight on Sunday, not long after Chris Cagel's Saturday night's performance at Toby Keith's 'I Love This Bar' in Syracuse, staff and customers were asked to leave. What happened next was sudden, but in my opinion, not all that shocking. Just as quickly as people were asked to exit the bar, workers started tearing down televisions, kitchen equipment and more. Even their Facebook page has been deleted and Syracuse.com reports that nobody would answer the phone at the business. I also tried calling the business line this afternoon and nobody answered for me either.

The reason I'm not completely shocked that the bar has apparently left town is because in April of last year, New York sued Toby Keith’s ‘I Love This Bar’ in Syracuse for not turning over sales tax revenue to the state’s Department of Taxation and Finance. And then in June of last year, The Post-Standard of Syracuse reported that a tax warrant filed by New York was looking for the $107,000 owed to the state in addition to the more than $145,000 in sales taxes from 2013.

Although the restaurant owed more than $300,000 in unpaid sales taxes to New York, they did make good on that payment, but their troubles were far from over. Earlier this year it was reported that Toby Keith's "I Love This Bar" was involved in a pretty hefty legal battle with Destiny USA over $1 million dollars in rent the mall claimed the restaurant owed. In turn, Toby Keith's claimed that the mall had violated its lease. Despite all of these problems, company execs said in February that they had no plan to move the restaurant. And we see how that worked out, right?

It's a shame that Toby's place had so many problems and that they packed up and left town. According to Syracuse.com, there were several national acts scheduled through the rest of this year.  I'm kicking myself for not going and checking out the venue when I had the opportunity because now that opportunity is gone.

Oh, and in case you were wondering- Toby doesn't own any of his 'I Love' restaurants. He has a licensing agreement that allows the owners to use his name.