Tyber Creek Pub, Dandelion Market Owners Persevere Through Tumultuous Time

When I asked Tommy Timmins what he and his two business partners call their company — the bar and restaurant group through which they operate popular establishments including The Workman’s Friend, Connolly’s on Fifth, Prohibition, The Daily, Tyber Creek Pub and Dandelion Market — he didn’t really have an answer. 

In the early aughts, when Timmins came together with current partners Maynard Goble and Kevin Devin, the trio began referring to their group as Best Bars for marketing purposes. Google was rapidly rising to popularity as America’s favorite search engine and the guys figured they wanted their businesses to show up when folks searched for “best bars in Charlotte.” 

“We’ve adopted that name, but we don’t have one really,” Timmins told me. “That’s how people know us, but we don’t have a name per se.” 

While perhaps a frustrating answer to a journalist looking for a succinct brand to help label all these establishments spread throughout town, it gave a glimpse at a certain knack for marketing that placed the Best Bars team ahead of the curve from its very beginnings 25 years ago. 

Later in our interview, Timmins and Goble called back to their “Smile for Smacky” advertising series, the weekly Tyber Creek Pub print ads that would run in Creative Loafing, consisting of Polaroid-style photos taken of bargoers having fun at the pub each week.

Folks would pick up the paper just to flip to the ad and see if they made it into print each week. The ad series was a precursor to online photo sites like Carolina Nightlife and Lazyday that would become popular in the years to follow, not to mention Facebook and Instagram. 

Not only had the Best Bars trio worked SEO into their strategy before it became a common term for marketers, they had launched their own style of social media in print form before Instagram had even been invented.

These are just two examples of how the team behind some of Charlotte’s most popular nightlife establishments has been able to keep so many different businesses running consistently and successfully for two decades. 

In recent years, however, with the onset of COVID-19 and everything that’s followed, the job has felt more like juggling. 

In March, Tyber Creek Pub closed its doors at the corner of South Boulevard and Tremont Avenue for the last time after 25 years due to redevelopment of the property that had been slated since 2021. 

Then on July 21, the team shut down Dandelion Market, the longtime late-night staple on West 5th Street in Uptown, after nearly 15 years in business. 

“It’s a difficult decision, but we’ve been in on-going rent negotiations and will not be able to come to a resolution,” Timmins stated in a press release announcing the closure. “Any rent increase, significant or otherwise in this current market is simply not sustainable for the long term. It’s been an unbelievable run for Dandelion Market and we’re grateful for everyone who made it an uptown fixture these past 15 years.” 

When I met with them at Workman’s Friend on a recent Friday afternoon, the team was far from dejected. Having closed on a new property on South Mint Street in February, they’ve been busy bringing the buildings there up to par for the return of Tyber Creek Pub. 

With future plans for a new Dandelion Market location also in the works, they’ve purchased the former Soul Gastrolounge food truck to turn it into a Dandelion Market truck that will serve favorites from that menu at the new Tyber Creek site. 

With all these exciting new projects in motion, the team remains optimistic about the state of Best Bars amidst Charlotte’s rapid growth. 

Still, they yearn for the days when they had the time to come up with ideas like Smile for Smacky. 

“We want to be bored again; we like being bored because that’s when creativity happens,” Timmins told me. “We’ve been playing Whac-A-Mole for the last five years. From 2020 to ‘25 coming up, it’s been close everything down, reopen — Tyber, then now Dandelion. We’re excited to get everything where it needs to live and then get bored, get inspired, and see what the next chapter is going to be.”

The ever-changing landscape of Charlotte

When Timmins opened Tyber Creek in 1999, he did so with different partners than he has today. Devin, an Irish native who had been working at Rí Rá Irish Pub on North Tryon Street, joined Timmins in 2001 to open Connolly’s on Fifth. 

Goble, who also worked at Rí Rá, joined Timmins and Devin shortly thereafter to help run Tyber Creek as they were opening Madison’s Bar & Lounge, which would later become Prohibition. The first project that all three opened together was Dandelion Market in 2010. 

The Best Bars establishments have certain throughlines that are obvious enough if you look for them, with a heavy leaning toward the early 20th-century, traditional Irish aesthetic throughout. 

The team has had a front-row seat to witness major changes in both Uptown and South End. When Timmins opened Tyber Creek Pub in 1999, the historic building had been home to four different restaurants over the previous 10 years. 

“It was sinking down off of [South Boulevard] and everyone was like, ‘What is that?’” he recalled. “I’m driving by it, I don’t even know. Is it open? Is it not? It took a lot of doing to get people to know that we were there and that we were going to stay. 

As the neighborhood evolved from industrial warehouses to apartment complexes and popular hangouts — especially after the opening of the Blue Line in 2007 — Timmins’ investment paid off. 

“As things evolved in South End, the first couple of years were not great. The next five were good. The last 10 were extraordinary,” he said. “It’s great when you can stick around long enough to reap those benefits. Sometimes when you’re around long enough, the neighborhood can change in the other way … It could be this is where everybody used to go, and then it shifts. We’ve been fortunate enough to have the upswing.”

Read more: ClannDarragh Hosts Monthly Irish Jam Session for Young and Old at Tyber Creek Pub (2020)

A similar story played out in Uptown, where the team’s arrival on East 5th Street preceded the Spectrum Center. It also predated (and outlived) the Epicentre. 

“We’ve set up shop there on 5th Street for a long time; we like it because we can touch and feel it. There’s always been that energy,” Timmins said. “Then the arena came and it’s really a destination. Epicentre came, that was a huge pull for Uptown, and there was a lot of synergy … We’re onsite still after all these years. We’ve got a great team, great managers, so we’re able to manage it really well because we can touch and feel it. With that being said, it’s still a great block and it’s going to continue to be.” 

Though experiencing their share of ups and downs throughout the first two decades of the 21st century, the team was able to continue on successfully thanks to a unified vision and a penchant for signing long-term leases — 15 or 20 years in most cases. 

The latter has allowed them to dodge many of the issues around rent increases in Charlotte, though it also means that when time for new negotiations comes up, the increase in cost might be exponential compared to when they signed on. 

“It’s such a growing city. It seems like every five years, Charlotte’s growing faster than it was five years ago,” said Goble. “That’s amazing in a lot of ways. Where you suffer from that is when you’re in a period of high inflation the way we are now. The fast, rapidly growing cities are going to bear that the hardest.

“But it is encouraging to me that although rents are high, costs of goods are high, sales are also really good,” he continued. “People are out supporting businesses and generating that revenue so you can bear that burden most of the time.” 

Sometimes, however, it’s simply unfeasible, as was the case with Dandelion Market earlier this year. When it came time to negotiate with the property owner over a new lease, the two parties were so far apart that there wasn’t much hope for a deal. 

Even if that was apparent early on, it took some time for the team to realize they would need to back out. 

“Sometimes it’s really easy to go with your gut and do what you know is the right thing to do when it’s something that you really want to do,” Timmins said. 

“It’s very challenging when your gut’s telling you to do something that your heart doesn’t really want to do. That’s the situation. Everything in your brain and your heart is saying, ‘No, how could we even consider this as an option?’ But when you look at it you know it’s the right path to take, that’s when it’s really hard.” 

Yet the future remains bright for the Best Bars team, as work continues on the new Tyber Creek Pub location, which will replace the former 1501 South Mint cocktail lounge. 

The property includes three buildings and the team plans to make use of all of them. There’s a courtyard area where they plan to host live music and other events, and they’re excited about the closer vicinity to Bank of America Stadium, allowing for tailgating opportunities before Panthers and Charlotte FC games. 

It’s been a rough five years for the Best Bars team, but they keep a positive mindset to help push through. 

After all, you can only prepare for what you can see coming, said Timmins.  

“You can’t worry about what you can’t control. If you do, you’re going to be dead,” he explained about his way of approaching the business. “If it’s something in our control that we screwed up, then we own that and we learn from it and we move forward. But if it’s something that we can’t control, if you stress about that, you’re dead — you’re dead in the water.”

As long as the Best Bars trio has anything to do with it, that’s not going to happen.