SAY GOODBYE
Rula Bula, Mill Avenue’s ‘real Irish pub,’ closing
For more than 20 years, Arizona State University students and Tempe revelers have counted on Rula Bula as a destination for perfectly poured pints of Guinness, live music and reliably good times. While other Mill Avenue bars changed names as capriciously as a college freshman settling on a major, Rula Bula always promised a sizable crowd, an affordable cover and plenty of space to stretch out and settle in on the back patio.
But soon, all that will come to an end.
Rula Bula founder Steve Goumas says the bar and restaurant will close its doors in June. Goumas says the historic building Rula Bula has called home for more than two decades has been purchased by development company Wexford Developments, which has
offices in Alberta, Canada, as well as in Florida and New York. Goumas says the company did not offer Rula Bula’s owners a formal opportunity to extend the bar’s lease, which expires on June 30.
“Unless there’s a leprechaun out there with an Irish miracle, we’re probably going to have to shut down,” Goumas told The Arizona Republic on Wednesday morning.
What to know about Rula Bula in Tempe
Open since 2000, Rula Bula takes its name from a riff on the Gaelic expression “rí rá agus ruaille buaille,” which translates to “uproar and commotion” according to a news release about the bar’s closure.
The bar is located on the north end of Mill Avenue in downtown Tempe in the Andre Building, which is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
The building was originally constructed in 1888, according to the city of Tempe, and is historically significant due to “its association with R. G. Andre, a skilled saddle maker and prominent businessman in early Tempe.“Over the building’s more than 100-year history, it has housed a range of businesses including Andre’s hardware and harness shop, the Southside Progress newspaper, the Arizona Cotton Growers Association and a U.S. Post Office location.
Goumas says the location has helped make Rula Bula a “landmark” business for downtown Tempe, the loss of which could be “a sign of the times.” Other iconic Mill Avenue restaurants have also closed in recent history such as Monti’s La Casa Vieja, which closed in 2014 after nearly 60 years in business, and Restaurant Mexico, which closed in 2019 after 42 years.
“We’re the longest surviving independent restaurant on Mill — and it’s not easy to last on Mill for five years let alone for 20 years,” Goumas says. “It took a lot of hard work and dedication, and through that process we have been a torchbearer for a lot of things.”
In addition to being one of Mill Avenue’s few live music venues, Rula Bula hosts a handful of popular annual events including a rowdy St. Patrick’s Day party and Pints for Pat, a fundraiser for the Pat Tillman Foundation.
The fundraiser started as a grassroots movement in memory of the ASU football star and alumnus Pat Tillman, who was a regular at Rula Bula, Goumas says. Tillman went on to play for the Arizona Cardinals but left the NFL to enlist in the U.S. Army and was killed in a friendly-fire incident while deployed in Afghanistan.
Goumas says after Tillman’s death the bar’s staff noticed customers leaving full pints of beer on tables. They were confused, worried about a potential issue with the product, until they caught a customer on the way out the door and asked about the pint left behind.
That pint’s for Pat, the customer told Goumas.
It inspired the annual event during which Rula Bula sells commemorative pint glasses engraved with Tillman’s football jersey number, No. 42, and donates all proceeds to the Pat Tillman Foundation.
“I mean, how many people pass away and their friends still buy them a beer like they’re with them?” Goumas says. “And it’s like, we couldn’t keep that money.”
Here’s why the popular Irish bar is closing
Despite Rula Bula’s significance to Tempe and the ASU community, Goumas says the building’s new owner has left him no option other than to close the bar. Goumas says he was never given a formal lease to sign.
“We’ve been there for 20 years,” Goumas says. “We’ve been a pillar of the local community, we’re one of the busiest restaurants on Mill Avenue. We never really thought there’d be a reason a landlord wouldn’t want us as a tenant.”
Wexford Developments co-founder Sam Gordon says his company purchased the Andre Building in January 2019 and intended to keep Rula Bula as a tenant. He says he exchanged emails with the bar’s owners and in March 2019 proposed a 10-year lease extension with a higher rent as Rula Bula’s current rate is “vastly below market,” according to Gordon.
But lease negations stalled, both Goumas and Gordon say. Ultimately, Wexford Developments pursued and secured a new tenant.
“It was just a square peg, round hole type situation,” Gordon says, adding that he tried unsuccessfully to help Rula
Bula find a new location on Mill Avenue, where Wexford Developments owns a handful of properties.
Though the bar and restaurant closed for about three months last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Goumas says he was confident Rula Bula was on track to recover. The bar closed the day after St. Patrick’s Day in 2020, then reopened on May 16 and has been “going at 100 miles an hour” in recent months.
Goumas says he asked Wexford Developments for a 30- to 100-year lease, but did not receive a response from the company. Gordon says the offer was extended after a lease had already been signed by a new tenant.
A century-long lease would be unusually lengthy for a typical bar or restaurant, Goumas acknowledges. But he intended to show how committed the bar’s owners are to staying. The request was in keeping with Irish tradition, he says, as Arthur Guinness famously secured a 9,000-year lease for the St. James’s Gate Brewery in Dublin, where he first began brewing his now-famous Irish beer.
“Rula Bula, it’s all real wood built by Irish craftsmen in Ireland,” Goumas says. “It was built to last. It’s a real Irish pub, and so we can easily be there for the life of the building.”
Goumas and the bars’ owners have launched a GoFundMe account to help raise money for the bar and restaurant’s staff; some of them have been working at Rula Bula for more than 15 years, according to Goumas.
If there’s additional money left over after ensuring the staff is financially stable, he says the owners will donate it to some of the community organizations the bar has supported over the years.
Goumas says it’s “not out of the question” that Rula Bula could relocate down the line, but the process of moving the bar and all of its fixtures would be expensive and time-consuming.
It’s likely the bar’s many fans will have to wait a while to get their next Rula Bula fix after it shutters at its current home this June.
“The Rula Bula experience is a good one. That’s what we sell, good energy and fun,” Goumas says. “We want people to leave in a better mood or just hang out, like Pat did.”
Details: Rula Bula Irish Pub and Restaurant, 401 S. Mill Ave., Tempe. 480929-9500, rulabula.com.