Autumn Cates, who is the manager of the 117 Lounge came to Oklahoma more than a year ago and she said what motivates her as a person is success.
“Success really motivates me,” Cates said. “When I first got the job, I worked a lot and really enjoyed what I was doing. It makes me feel good seeing the success the Lounge has when I see the customer smile and enjoy their time in the Lounge.”
Cates said she is from Sweeny, Texas, and moved to Oklahoma in 2018.
Sweeny is a town southwest of Houston.
“I was out of work for a long time,” Cates said. “I just moved to Oklahoma and did not have a job or a car. I walked up to the lounge every day for a week in May 2018 until Gary Ronan the owner got tired of me coming up here and offered me a job.”
Cates said she decided to move to Oklahoma for a change of scenery and she really likes how nice the people in Oklahoma are.
“I wanted something new to look at and decided to move to Oklahoma,” Cates said. “The people I get to see and serve make my day. They are so nice to me and I really like meeting new people. You never really know who is going to walk into the lounge.”
The 117 Lounge is more than 100 years old, located on Broadway Street right across from the Weatherford Daily News.
The Granite on the bar also is more than 100 years old and was there when the bar was first established. There are pictures of when horses were hitched outside the lounge.
The 117 lounge has been doing some remodeling as they took out the old carpet and replaced it with new hard floor. They also repainted some areas and the bar is non-smoking.
“We made the lounge non-smoking for the better health of our customers and employees,” Manager Autumn Cates said. “Since we switched to non-smoking, we have seen new customers come into the lounge.”
The lounge requires guests to be 21 in order to enter and they serve alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages.
Some of the alcoholic beverages include mixed drinks, cocktails, draft beer, bottled beer, canned beer and craft beer. They have soda and other non-alcoholic beverages such as energy drinks and water for people who want to come in for a good time, but do not want to drink.
They offer free pool Tuesdays. They serve pizza and snack items every day as well. During the summer, the lounge will have different food items every day and those items can be found on the 117 Lounge Facebook page.
“We have regulars who come in every day,” Cates said. “They like to come and hang out and we have amazing bartenders who take care of our customers.”
Cates said they hope to get more business into the lounge, since they were closed previously due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
“Being closed during COVID-19 was hard on a lot of people, especially the bartenders” Cates said. “The owner did an amazing job of taking care of us and our customers and we are just so fortunate to have a boss like that. My goal is to get people to come in here and really just enjoy themselves and have a good time.”