The Matchcover Storyteller

First, the matchbox itself.  It is a box, not a matchbook, with a manumark so small I couldn’t read it.  None available on eBay and I know of no others than this one.

I have this vision of actor Jon Voight walking the streets of midtown Manhattan in the movie “Midnight Cowboy”, or maybe Debra Winger riding, and both maybe with good reason:

Johnny Utah’s was a country and western restaurant and bar in midtown’s Rockefeller Center, serving up Southwestern flavors and accents.    And—-it had the only mechanical bull in all of New York City!  Almost every seat in the place had a view of it.

I couldn’t easily find opening and closing dates, but it clearly captured the “urban cowboy” feel of that time in America.   It was a downstairs place, an underground saloon carved out of an old bank vault.  That’s about it, except:

There is one story from 2017 of a lawsuit filed by a Long Island woman who claims she was too drunk to ride the bull and they never should have let her on.  What she was seeking was unspecified, but her lawyer had settled a similar claim the year before by a Brooklyn hospital technician.     I have no idea how things turned out, but there were at least 6 different lawsuits related to injuries from riding “Buck” (as they named the bull), with Johnny Utah’s laying out more than $200,000 in injury settlements!

Then there was a 2014 lawsuit (settled in march 2015) by 50 female staff workers who argued about everything from being groped by customers to sexual harassment, labor issues and more.  At the time it was called a “settlement in principle”, but an online search will take you to a long, long court filing  —  if you want to enrich legal issues that go with a matchbox like this. I’d have to say the descriptions are pretty degrading.

In May 2015, when Floyd Mayweather Jr. was getting ready for Manny Pacquiao in the Las Vegas “Fight of The Century”, Johnny Utah’s was one of a score of places recommended by the New York Post to watch the fight.  General admission was $50, but $200 would get you a guaranteed seat (just not on the bar’s mechanical bull), a four-hour open bar, plus apps and an entree. 

Two last quickies:

Johnny Utah is the name of the main protagonist in the 1991 film “Point Break”.  There’s lots of stuff on EBay and other places related to him & the movie, but not for the restaurant and our matchbox..

Lawsuits are a great place to search for stories surrounding some of your matchcovers and boxes, particularly those in any type of active service.  Restaurants and, interestingly, trucking firms, are a fairly good source of some interesting legal issues arising out of some interesting events.