Cowboy & Co is easy enough to understand when you walk through the door.

Country music. A dance floor. Live singers every Friday and Saturday. And, importantly, a soundtrack that stays Country rather than wandering off somewhere else once the night gets going.

What isn’t obvious from the bar is how far back the Country story behind it goes.

Cowboy & Co is owned by Gareth Thomas and Wayne Hadlow. Hadlow has worked in British Country music for around 30 years and is currently President of the British Country Music Association. Before that, his family was behind one of the great oddities of British Country history: Fort San Antone.

Wayne’s father Tony built the Lancashire venue, which the BCMA describes as having become the largest honky-tonk outside the United States. Wayne went on to promote Country artists including The Bellamy Brothers and Ward Thomas, then founded the festival that eventually became BCMA FanFest.

So Cowboy & Co isn’t somebody in Blackpool noticing that cowboy hats are having a moment.

There is proper mileage behind it.

That helps explain why the place feels less like a themed bar borrowing Country and more like another room being added to a British scene that was already here.

And people are using the room.

In 2023, independent Country radio and podcast project Clewes’ Country chose Cowboy & Co for the first Clewes’ Country Presents live show. The idea was to take more Country music around Britain and give independent artists another way of reaching audiences. Blackpool was where they started.

Cowboy & Co now keeps its own roster of house musicians too, including co-owner Gareth Thomas, Cadillac Blackjack, Benn Froggatt, Claire Daye, Becky Tate and Kassidy Kiernan.

That matters more than having the right signs on the wall.

A Country scene needs stages small enough for somebody to get on them before everybody knows their name. It needs places where fans can turn up regularly rather than waiting for the next arena tour. It needs rooms where playing Country music is the normal state of affairs.

Cowboy & Co gives the North West one of those rooms.

The immediate attraction is simple enough: if you want a Country night in Blackpool, there is one waiting for you. Live Country is currently advertised free every Friday and Saturday, and one visitor travelled specifically for the bar and came away delighted that Country actually meant Country all night.

But knowing where it came from makes the place better.

Fort San Antone has gone. British Country hasn’t.

A generation later, Wayne Hadlow is still helping give it somewhere to gather.

COWBOY & CO — USEFUL LINKS & GOOD TO KNOW

Where: 27 Queen Street, Blackpool, FY1 1NL.

Before you go: live acts, events and opening arrangements can change. Check Cowboy & Co directly before making a special journey.