The Barn was packed with people Saturday (Feb. 1) on grand-opening night for Surrey's new country music bar, located in the former Taphouse/Mirage club building on 102A Avenue in Guildford.
A couple hundred patrons, many of them wearing cowboy or trucker hats, filled the dance floor for live music from Dave Hartney Band and songs played by DJ Jamest (James Proulx).
By 8:30 p.m., the parking lot was filled with vehicles as people waited at the door to enter the rebranded, two-level bar. At midnight, a "Running of the Bull" involved photo-ops with a bull mascot on the dance floor.
"Well wasn't that a party!" Barn co-owner/operator Owen Coomer posted on social media. "Thanks to everyone who came to our grand opening and helped make it even more fun than we'd hoped for. This is the start of something really great."
Open Wednesday to Sunday, The Barn promos include Saddle Up Saturdays, Wild West Wednesdays and Southern Comfort Sundays.
The "Club Night" dress code, employed after 9 p.m., prohibits flip-flops, sandals, slippers, sweatpants, basketball jerseys, tracksuits, sleeveless/muscle shirts and athletic wear.
"We only wish to make you proud," says a sign that thanks Roosters, Boone County and Gabby's, all long-gone country bars in the region.
The 500-seat bar is where The Mirage dance club opened in 1997, at 15330 102A Ave. By 2014, the two-level building was renovated and reincarnated as The Taphouse.
Little over a year ago, Coomer and Wayne Ferguson formed a new ownership group of the 500-seat Taphouse Guildford, granted a two-year lease extension last January on land where Surrey city council approved a 22-storey tower development in the fall of 2023. The Taphouse closed Jan. 1 for renovations and later reopened as a country bar.
It's not clear how long The Barn will operate there, but Coomer says plans are to build the brand and reopen at another location, if and when property redevelopment starts.
Surrey-based Steelix is the real estate development and management company plans for a 22-storey mixed-use highrise on the site with 296 housing units and ground-floor commercial space. The higher-density rezoning application was approved by Surrey council after a public hearing in September 2023.