Gilley's Club in Pasadena might have been immortalized in the 1980 John Travolta flick Urban Cowboy and in spin-off saloons in Dallas and Las Vegas, but a fire — later attributed to arson — ended the run of this true original in 1989.
But country music singer and eponymous former owner Mickey Gilley plans to bring the "world's biggest honky tonk" back from the ashes.
"We are putting a plan together . . . to rebuild Gilley's in Pasadena, Texas," Gilley says in a Facebook video he posted on Wednesday night. "We are going to hopefully raise the money to put the club in place."
"We are putting a plan together . . . to rebuild Gilley's in Pasadena, Texas."
Gilley said that he has been working with the mayor of Pasadena on potential sites for the club, as the remaining buildings of the original were demolished in 2006 to make way for a Pasadena ISD building.
The Chronicle reports that a spot "off Red Bluff and Fairmont, near the convention center, seems to be the intended location of the club complex," which may include a restaurant, a concert stage and a museum. The jury's still out on the mechanical bull.
Want to be a part of remaking history? Mickey Gilley is being very public with his resurrection plea, urging potential investors to call his assistant, Jeffrey McDonald, at 1-800-GILLEY-1.
The original Gilley's opened in Pasadena in 1970.
