What does it mean to be 'MagBarred?' Meet the owners of the Louisville bar behind the phrase
On Urban Dictionary, a popular online crowd-sourced dictionary website, the term “MagBarred” is defined as “turning a non-drive-thru building into a drive-thru without consent” — in other words, a car crashed into your building.
Louisville residents may or may not be surprised to learn that the phrase, upvoted more than 100 times on the site, originates here in Derby City thanks to Magnolia Bar in Old Louisville, the site of so many crashes that the longtime tavern even plans to make memorabilia with “tour dates" to commemorate each one.
Daniel Fitzgerald, co-owner of Magnolia Bar, along with his brother Steve Fitzgerald, said while the repairs aren’t always fun, there are worse things that can make a bar famous.
“It’s always been kind of a colloquialism. It’s cool to be part of everybody’s collective psyche,” Daniel said. “Everybody’s got their own Mag Bar wreck story."
'MagBarred: The Tour' memorabilia coming soon
A friendly, neighborhood bar by day, and a "come as you are" type bar in the evening, Magnolia Bar typically offers various entertainment options to appeal to a wide audience, including karaoke, trivia nights and live music.
In the spirit of keeping things light, the business decided to have some fun with its accident-prone reputation in December 2023 by creating an ornament with the bar's 13 "tour dates" where a car either flipped, damaged items outside of the building like garbage cans, poles and street signs, grazed Magnolia Bar or entered the building directly.
“(Steve’s) partner makes Christmas ornaments every year for us to give away at the Christmas party and the one this year had the dates of all the MagBarring,” Daniel said.
Steve said while there have been no serious injuries to drivers, many repairs have taken place throughout the years to fix damages from the crashes, reaching upwards of $80,000 since 2010. Daniel, who's worked at the bar since 1995, purchased it with other partners in 2010, and he and Steve later bought and opened Pizza Donisi, located next door, in 2013. Steve became a co-owner at Mag Bar in 2016 when he bought out the previous partners.
“That’s just due to the fact that we have people with skills, and we have skills," Steve said. "Between friends and patrons that have skills, everybody jumps in to help — but if you quantify their labor, you’re getting up there,” Steve said.
Other crashes have caused more serious damage, including one that required the building to be restabilized, the brickwork to be redone and the interior bar to be rebuilt. Luckily, the two brothers do much of the work themselves, or with the help of contractor friends and other skilled individuals they know.
Daniel proudly said despite all the incidents, Mag Bar hasn’t closed a single time due to damages and repair needs. All they needed was a set of temporary doors and other necessities to continue serving customers.
Daniel jokingly said they have Stanley Schultze & Co., located on 6th Street, on speed dial for any necessary door and window repairs. "They come over, they measure, put in a new set of doors, and away (they) go,” Steve said.
Daniel, who also does design work, plans to create a T-shirt in the coming months with a heavy metal-style logo and the “MagBar” name, featuring a stylized photo of the crash on the front and the “tour dates" on the back.
“It’s never a bad thing to have people talk about it," Daniel said. "We have fun with it."
How many times have people crashed into Magnolia Bar?
According to the “MagBarred: The Tour” ornament from the 2023 Christmas party, the crash dates are as follows:
June 27, 2011
June 14, 2013
August 11, 2013
April 4, 2016
August 22, 2018
April 27, 2020
December 4, 2020
June 15, 2021
July 19, 2022
December 28, 2022
June 29, 2023
August 16, 2023
August 19, 2023
TBD
This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Louisville's Magnolia Bar coins new phrase, plans merchandise sales
