Lakewood Lore

No watering holes barred in history of our fair city

Taverns, of which Lakewood currently has 73, were popular gathering places in our area dating back to 1811.

In March of that year, the first recorded license to keep a tavern was issued to Daniel Miner by the county Common Pleas Court.

This pioneer pub was a 18-by-24-foot log cabin on the east side of Rocky River near today’s Detroit Avenue bridge. Miner had bought the cabin from Philo Taylor, who in 1809 had become our first settler. Lakewood then was known only as Township 7, Range 14 of the Western Reserve.

Issuance of Miner’s liquor license came a year after he was cited for selling a gill of whiskey contrary to statute and was fined 25 cents.

After Miner died in 1813, Moses Eldred ran the tavern. Later, Miner’s widow took over and continued it for a number of years.

One of the most acclaimed early watering holes was a large frame tavern opened by Rufus Wright in 1816 on the west bank of Rocky River. It was acquired by Jacob Silverthorn in 1853, subsequently operated by the Patchen family as the Patchen House, and then finally again taken over by Silverthorn.

It became a favorite Sunday place for chicken dinners and operated until torn down in the mid-1920s to make way for the Westlake Hotel.

However, the Silverthorn legacy was revived once again in the 1930s when a restaurant by the same name was opened adjoining the hotel. This latter-day Silverthorn was closed in 1983 when the hotel was renovated and changed to Westlake Condominiums. Today the former restaurant space is used for a party room.

Among other early taverns were a beer garden run by John Knoll at Clifton Park beach as part of a dance hall and picnic ground complex; Ingleside Cottage, a low, rambling, part-log building at Detroit and Hopkins until razed in 1912; and Melrose House opened by George Saal on Detroit near what is now Thoreau and destroyed by fire in 1896.

There also was the Grant House, which stood on Detroit where Lakewood Hospital is now. Its site originally was owned by Mars Wagar, early Lakewood settler. He sold the land for two oxen because it was on the side of a gully and thus unsuitable for farming.

During the mid-1800s, after Detroit became a plank road, our tavern keepers drew considerable patronage form other areas. Much of their business came from two large groups, both of which were from outside the community.

The first was made up of farmers to the west, who brought their produce to Cleveland in horse-drawn wagons. Unable to make the round trip in a single day, they would head for the big city in the afternoon so as to arrive very early the next morning. Upon reaching the market, they would catch a few hours’ sleep before selling their wares.

Homeward bound, later in the day, they became tired after five or six mile and would chooses one of the Lakewood taverns at which to unwind and to rest their weary horses.

The other group comprised pleasure-seeking young bloods of Cleveland who liked to harness their spirited steeds and race them west for a night of living-it-up in our local taverns.

And after the partying, as they galloped back to the city, their raucous laughter and the clatter of their horses’ hooves on the plank road could be heard from the wee hours until sun-up.

Today, one of Lakewood’s oldest family-owned businesses is Mahall’s Twenty Lanes across from Madison Park. It was founded by John K. Mahall in 1924. It continues as an active recreational center for bowling and pool, besides providing a popular restaurant and bar.

Many Lakewood taverns burgeoned after prohibition ended in 1933. The former Green Garden was started by Michael Naratko on Lark Street in 1934. His son Steve bought the present Baratko’s Restaurant and Bar at the west end of Detroit in 1963. Before that, it was Wally and Paul’s.

The Black Horse Cafe on the northeast corner of Madison and West 117th has kept the same name through five owners since it was started in 1940 by the late Frank Konieczkowsky. For the last 31 years, the Richard Cepec family has owned and operated it.

Another name that has remained through numerous ownerships is Newman Corners Tavern on Madison in Birdtown. The building once housed a Lakewood library.

Riding the crest 50 years ago on Madison at Warren was Grebe’s, a famed delicatessen with tables. It specialized in ham sandwiches and delicious dark beer. Later it became Christie’s.

The southeast corner of Madison and Bunts has been a bar location since 1939. For many years it was known as the Playboy Lounge. Ronnie O’Donnell bought it 10 years ago and changed the name to O’Donnell’s Tap House.

Mitey Mouse Lounge has kept its name and location on the north side of Madison between Cordova and Winton for about 35 years, according to present owner David Malcom.

The White Door name has been here for more than a half century. Originally the bar was on the north side of Madison between Elbur and Lewis Drive, owned and operated from 1940-50 by founder Bud Vinch. In 1963 he and his son James moved the tavern to its present location on Detroit and Warren.

The elder Vinch died in 1968. His son continues the business.

The Kenilworth at 18204 Detroit, now run by Paul Wiedt and his sons Robert and Hack, has retained the same name since it was opened 54 years ago by Lakewoodite Larry Finegan.

Finegan, who sold it in 1965, said he took the name from nearby Kenilworth Avenue.

“My wife refused to let me use my own name for the bar,” mused Finegan, who is now 95 years old.

This article by Dan Chabek appeared in The Lakewood Sun Post, May 7, 1992. Reprinted with permission.

[Note: James A. Vinch, White Door Saloon, passed away January 7, 1998. An obituary appeared in the Cleveland Plain Dealer January 10, 1998. The Vinch family operated the White Door until April, 2004.]

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