Tif's Ugly Mug, the 5th Street bar that has served as a haunt for Fulton's college crowd for the past seven years, has closed its doors and moved to The Landing, the popular nightlife spot in St. Louis.
Brandon Tiefenauer, the bar's general manager, told the Fulton Sun in an interview for a March 30 story that "people ask me all the time if something is going to happen... Tif's will not be closing; we still have another year on our lease." Tiefenauer more recently said that in the meantime, circumstances have changed.
"We are always looking for new opportunities," he said. "One came up in St. Louis that was good for us. Since (that) interview ... we have been in negotiations and came to an agreement that satisfied both parties." Tiefenauer said they plan on opening the new bar on The Landing in the first week of July.
The bar has been a Fulton establishment since 1947, when it was first dubbed The Tap Room. The Tap Room continued to serve William Woods University and Westminster College students for the decades to come, eventually becoming Tif's in 2005.
Though the Fulton location closed its doors for business May 5, building owner David McDaniel said that Tiefenauer's lease stipulates that we may sublease the property - so long as it meets McDaniel's approval - and that though it might not come back as the familiar Tif's, Fulton's collegiate student body probably won't have to go without a bar for long.