Cowboy Monkey

History

Cowboy Monkey opened in 2003 at 6 E. Taylor St. in downtown Champaign under Carlos Nieto, Marco Nieto, and Tifani Moot of Nieto Enterprises. Moot later said the name came after someone set a monkey wearing a badge on top of a blue horse sculpture they had bought for the bar. It became a local-music room with a long-running Tuesday open mic, and it also served Tex-Mex food and cocktails. CRS Hospitality, founded by Chris Saunders, bought the bar in 2022.