Khyber Update Part Deux: Stephen Simons — “I Expect To Own The Khyber One Year From Now, And I Expect To Own The Khyber Ten Years From Now”
It was all a misunderstanding, you see — well, sort of. We just spoke with Stephen Simons of The Khyber — Stephen and his family have owned the place since the late 1980s — and he expanded a bit on this whole business about The Khyber being up for sale. Here’s what happened: A few months ago, though the Khyber was not up for sale at the time, Simons was approached by a potential buyer, who apparently came very close to taking the historic venue off of Simons’ hands — and according to Simons, for a princely (but undisclosed) sum. When that deal fell through, Simons found himself with something he’d never had before — a price tag for the Khyber. Soon thereafter, an outside agent took Simons’ pricetag info and placed this request for bids online, which Simons had neither authorized nor particularly even desired. But the ad is up now, interest is being generated, and Simons and agent are currently debating whether to take the whole thing down or not anyway. “It’s for sale to the extent that everything is for sale,” he says, though he’s quick to add that, in any event, The Khyber is still booking shows and keeping its employees and in general doing what the Khyber does. “Believe me, if The Khyber sells, we’ll have a huge party and tell everyone and party like it’s 1999,” he said. “But really, I expect to own The Khyber one year from now, and I expect to own the Khyber ten years from now.”
