Ryan Handran was out fishing in May 2024 with his boss Rick Welch when he was asked a question he hadn’t really thought about.
“What’s your plan?” Handran remembers Welch, then the owner of Rick’s Cafe in Starkville, asking.
“I was like, ‘Well, I don’t know, man,’ I talked about maybe buying the bar one day, but it would be, in five or 10 years,” Handran said.
That ended up being closer to six months when Welch sat him down in his office and offered him a package deal of the bar, a nearby rental property and the house Handran was already planning on purchasing.
Handran and his wife, Margaret, realized they both had parts of what it took to co-own Rick’s Cafe after years of experience working at the bar and decided to take it.
“I know the quirks about when to book a band and when to have an event, and why this is good and why that’s not, but I’m not the office person,” he said. “… But my wife is … really the new Rick. She does all the paperwork and stuff that sits in the office, and I still just run the bar like I always did.”
Having both Handrans running the business is what will take its success higher than he ever could, Welch said.
“Ryan’s told me a couple times since they took over, he didn’t see how one person could do everything I was doing,” Welch said. “… You could say I was doing three or four jobs as one person.”
Ryan Handran, 37, climbed the ranks at Rick’s Cafe working positions ranging from the doorman to manager. Even as a new owner, he said nothing much needs to change about the Starkville nightlife fixture.
“Rick had the formula down,” he said. “For us to change anything would be so dumb for us at this point.”
Though the bathrooms may be updated soon, he said with a laugh.
Handran has worked at Rick’s Cafe for almost 15 years through three stints in Starkville. A self-described “feather in the wind,” Handran hasn’t stayed in one place for very long.
Handran grew up in Wyoming and Colorado, before enlisting in the National Guard between his junior and senior years in high school, he said.
Before then he worked in kitchens, whether in his own at home, his family’s bakery or in fast-food restaurants, which taught him how to deal with stressful situations, he said.
“Working lunch at (the) Taco Bell drive-through is just like being in combat,” Handran said, laughing. “I mean, it’s crazy, so many of the stress management and creative problem-solving skills that I got definitely came from working in a restaurant.”
Between deployments, Handran visited friends in different cities across the county, including Starkville, where he worked as manager of Cowbells Sports Grill for eight months before his second deployment.
After some time serving as a sergeant, Handran realized he didn’t want to be in the military.
“There’s nothing that sucks worse than just having a leader that’s just there to get a paycheck … and I wasn’t going to be that guy,” he said. “I knew that it’s not right to be a leader that doesn’t want to lead, that doesn’t want this job,”
Handran returned to Starkville and worked at Rick’s Cafe before moving back to Colorado in 2012 to get his associate’s degree in energy efficiency and alternative energy production from Ecotech Institute in Colorado, he said.
He worked in solar panel installation and solar system sales but found it still wasn’t what he wanted to do, and after two years, he ended up back in Starkville working at Rick’s Cafe again and later was promoted to manager.
His experience in all the positions at the bar has helped him to recognize the skills necessary for others to work there, he said.
The Handrans are looking to continue the tradition and keep the specialty of Rick’s Cafe going by bringing local musical acts along with more well-known musicians to the space including Ella Langley on Oct. 31.
“It’s really hard to catch people when they’re cool enough to play here and get 800 people to show up for it, but right before they’re too big to be here that’s such a unique spot,” Handran said. “… I wouldn’t just buy this bar if I didn’t work for Rick for 15 years first, because there’s so many little nuances to it that Rick has taught me that allow this place to flourish.
“… Nothing is changing because he knew what he was doing,” he added. “And we’re definitely following his footsteps and standing on his shoulders as hard as we can.”
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 41 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
