Courier Staff Writer

WATERLOO - College students and personalized T-shirts go together like peanut butter and jelly.

And Waterloo native Andre Wright's "jelly" business is booming.

He and Elie Ortiz, originally of Sioux City, started Tailgatebarn, a T-shirt business catering to the tailgating crowd, in Iowa City in 2005. Since then, the company has grown beyond the University of Iowa-themed shirts to feature school colors of the University of Northern Iowa, Iowa State and colleges as far away as Louisiana State University.

It wasn't necessarily a planned business venture for the two Iowa graduates. Wright and Ortiz started out making personalized T-shirts for bar crawls, business functions and family reunions.

"People knew us as graphic designers … It kind of evolved into the whole tailgating thing," Wright said. "We realized we could make a business."

So they made up around 50 shirts with varying designs and slogans that revolved around the party-hardy, drinking culture of tailgating Iowa football games. Slogans like, "Go Fight Win Drink" and "Johnson County Tailgating" adorn black and gold T-shirts, long-sleeved shirts and hooded sweatshirts, available at a few Iowa City stores and online.

"At the beginning it was huge - no one had ever done that before; it was a niche market," Wright said. "People thought it was cool: 'Oh, you can make shirts saying this?'"

"We filled that niche because a lot of people just had the Iowa gear," Ortiz said. "It was really a firestorm when we came out with our shirts."

Tailgatebarn shirts incorporate drinking- and sex-related puns into several shirts, as well as more benign references to Iowa City and the Hawkeyes. The most popular seller, according to the owners, is a picture of a hawk passed out next to a keg with the words, "Party Like a Hawk Star" - a reference to the 2007 song, "Party Like a Rock Star" by Shop Boyz.

The shirts are geared toward the college crowds that congregate before football games in parking lots to celebrate the game with friends. Shirts can be bought at Game Day Iowa and The Den, both in Iowa City, and online at Tailgatebarn.com.

With their success in Iowa City, Ortiz said he and Wright are poised to branch out. Purple and gold designs for UNI and different colors for 10 other universities are available online, most with generic rather than team-specific designs. The men say they hope that will change.

"Once we figure out what schools we're planning to serve next year, we'll start making more school-specific designs that focus on their tailgating culture and lifestyle," Wright said.

He added Tailgatebarn will be "very present" at UNI next fall, before the start of the football season. He and Ortiz use social networking like Facebook as well as fliers, door hangs and word-of-mouth advertising.

"We just want to be recognized as a fun brand, something people enjoy wearing," Ortiz said. "We may ruffle a few feathers along the way with content, but we just want to give people enjoyment."

Contact Amie Steffen

at (319) 291-1464 or

amie.steffen@wcfcourier.com.