Biker bar roars back to life

Fewer vendors registered for rally this year

By Mike Cherney - mcherney@thesunnews.com

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Overlooking the Waccamaw River, H.B. Spokes is located off S.C. 9 on Thursday, April 24, 2008. The bar is scheduled to re-open tonight. It had burned in September. Janet Blackmon Morgan / jblackmon@thesunnews.com

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Mishellie Williamson has been serving food and drinks at a makeshift bar in the parking lot of H.B. Spokes Saloon since the main building was destroyed in a fire about six months ago.

Now the 30-year-old from Red Bluff says she can't wait to move back into the rebuilt bar, which should reopen today if the building passes a county inspection this morning.

"This has been my second home for the past six years," said Williamson, who has worked at H.B. Spokes since the bar opened. "We're all like one big family."

So far this year, the bar - and the rest of the county - has fewer vendors than last year signed up for the Harley-Davidson spring rally, which runs from May 9 through 18. Lisa Bourcier, the county spokeswoman, said there is still time for vendors to get a permit.

But for H.B. Spokes' owners, employees and customers, being open in time for the bike rally is already an accomplishment.

"Everybody has worked above and beyond to pull it all together," said Renea Fowler, who owns the bar with her husband, Larry Fowler. "The main thing was to get it open."

The fire on Sept. 10 gutted the building. Todd Cartner, a spokesman for Horry County Fire Rescue, said earlier this year the cause of the blaze could not be determined because of extensive damage to the building.

Overall, the county has issued permits to 285 vendors for the spring rally. That's down from the 403 vendors last year. H.B Spokes has eight signed up, down from 15 last year. Bourcier said the county does not have a record of how many vendors had signed up at this time last year.

Mike Shank, the marketing director for Myrtle Beach Harley-Davidson, which is promoting the spring rally, said his company helped bring in about the same number of vendors this year as they did last year.

"Just like everybody else, the vendors are worried about the economy," Shank said. "They may have thought twice, but it hasn't kept them from coming to Myrtle Beach."

The new H.B. Spokes building is complete with an orange roof and is about the same size as the previous building. An outdoor bar on the patio, though, has been enlarged.

"It's a lot nicer than it was, that's for sure," said Harry Malpass, 62, beer in hand as he surveyed the last-minute work inside the new building. "It's definitely more roomy-looking."

After the fire, the bar still hosted vendors during the fall bike rally in October. But without the main building, some said, the mood was somber.

"You'd see people going over there just standing in front of what was a shell of a building," said Judy Ellis of Charlotte-based Easy Eddie's Motorcycle Service, a vendor at the October rally that is coming back in May.

Williamson, the bartender, said there is a core group of about 50 customers that have kept coming to the small bar in the parking lot, even when the weather was chilly.

One of them is Hunter H. Willis, a real estate agent and friend of Larry Fowler's. Willis said he spends a lot of time at the bar when he is not working, and predicts that this year's spring rally will be one of the biggest yet at H.B. Spokes.

"Here this place was completely destroyed," Willis said, "and that little bar is filled every day."

Contact MIKE CHERNEY at 444-1765.