Jeff Helsley of Goatfeathers and Art Bar
Star Profile
Story and Photo by John Temple Ligon

Photo by Orlando Patterson Jeff Helsley

When Goatfeathers in Five Points was conceived in 1980, there was not much like it in Columbia. There was something similar in Washington, New York, and New Orleans, where Goatfeathers' owner Jeff Helsley found his favorite bars. Helsley brought the first cappuccino machine into South Carolina, was at one time the state's largest seller of cigars, ran the first bar to serve Guinness Stout, and still serves the largest selection of wines by the glass in the state.

Jeff Helsley was born in St. Louis, Mo., where his father was a finance officer in the U.S. Army. His father was decorated by President Lyndon Johnson with the military's highest peacetime award for designing a new pay system suitable for all the branches of the military.

After kindergarten in Washington, Helsley attended grammar school in Boston while his father earned a graduate degree at Harvard, graduating second in his class.

The family moved to Hawaii when Helsley was nine years old, and he gained a younger sister by the time he was ten. The family returned to Washington when he was 12.

In 1967, after high school in Washington, Helsley entered the University of South Carolina thinking he would major in economics, as his father also assumed. He soon dropped the science for something practical... sculpture.

Helsley was an art major and a budding sculptor in USC's Sloan College, the home of the art department before it moved to McMaster College. His favorite sculpture professor was John Formo.

For reasons never fully considered, Helsley dropped out of school as a senior, maybe a semester short of graduation, and took off in his VW van for whatever, wherever.

He dabbled in historic preservation, honing his fine finishes and carpentry skills in Chevy Chase, Md. With his restoration experience, he came back to Columbia to help George Walker restore the Seibels House on Richland Street and to help William Fulmer on the Maxcy Gregg House a few doors down.

For about two years when Downunder Columbia was open in the basement of the Arcade Building on Main Street, Helsley and Malcom Hudson ran the Last Laugh, the only restaurant down there to earn a steady profit.

Helsley's mother inherited a farm in Missouri, and she asked him to take his van and his home builder's expertise out there to restore the place. While on the Missouri farm, Helsley put the buildings into marketable shape, and he learned a lot about row crops while he was at it.

After the farm was sold, Helsley tooled around the American West, going as far north as Montana. On the way back to South Carolina, he learned how to lay out and run a bar in New Orleans.

Back in Columbia in the late 1970s, Helsley cut a deal with George Meares, owner of Group Therapy on Harden Street, where the profits were coming in short of expectations. Helsley instituted innovations in hours and management and turned the place around.

He opened Goatfeathers in early 1981. He held off getting his beer and wine license because he didn't think his neighboring merchants would go along with the idea. Helsley served coffee and tea on Noritake china for the first six months and still showed a decent profit, enough to live on and to improve the place.

With the license to serve beer and wine, business exploded. After 13 years of strong returns, Helsley opened a bookstore, Intermezzo, next door and the Art Bar on Park Street in the Vista. The Art Bar was the Vista's first bar. Now there are about 45 bars and restaurants in the Vista.

Intermezzo was a browsing space, and periodicals and newspapers sold well, but the book business couldn't compete with the big box bookstores, so Helsley shut it down and moved the cigar stand into the front glass case at Goatfeathers.

Almost 20 years ago, the Sunday New York Times targeted Columbia for its What's Doing weekly travel piece, a regular item that has also covered Moscow, Paris, San Francisco, et al. After the Times described some of the subject city's destinations, they recommended restaurants that had the best food for the money. One of those restaurants was Goatfeathers.