The owner of the Austin-based chain "Bikinis" has purchased the empty town of Bankersmith, Texas, to expand his franchise.
When Doug Guller, CEO of ATX Brands, discovered the abandoned Texas hamlet of Bankersmith on Craigslist, he didn’t just see a dilapidated former railroad town. He saw the next frontier for his hospitality business. Guller is renaming the town Bikinis, after his Austin-based chain of “sports breastaurants,” which now has more than 10 locations. “There can’t be a better way to put Bikinis on the map… Literally,” Guller said in a press release quoted by the International Business Times. Bankersmith was founded in 1913 when a railroad ran through the region. At its apogee in the 1920s, it had a population of 50. After WWII, the population hovered around 20, according to the town’s website, and continued to decline. By fall 2012, Guller plans to remake the two-acre, one-building town as a tourist and event destination. “We want it to be a big playground,” Guller told Eater Austin.