The “dream” of The Towne Tavern began about twenty years ago. The “reality” of it began in 2003 when Marilyn’s Park Restaurant was purchased.
This building was erected in the 1800’s and became Bart Warren’s Blacksmith. Before Marilyn purchased the building and business it was Hank’s Park Restaurant. The original Park Restaurant, that served German food, was owned by the Wimmer family and operated in Averill Park (next to Legenbauer’s, which eventually became home of the Castle family.) The Wimmer family moved the business to the present location. We decided it was the Town’s Tavern, a bit of history for all of us to enjoy and be proud of, thus the name.
Our intention was to open using only the first floor, similar to the Park Restaurant. Once we started tearing out the floors, walls and ceiling and found all the beams and the framework of the building’s original intent – our dreams exploded! We preserved as many items as we could that we found from the blacksmith shop:
- The large charred tree stump / pounding block upstairs was found next to the original fire pit along with some of the horseshoes and tools
- The wood on top of the barroom divider is part of the original blacksmith floor as is the section with the ring on the corner wall display upstairs
- Most all the large structural beams are original though we had to replace some and repair others. We found all the beams and downstairs ceiling black with smoke and left them as we found them except for sealing them
- The nails that you see on the beams downstairs are original and were used by the Blacksmith to hang their various sized horseshoes. (We hope we’re as lucky as the Blacksmith Shop with all those horseshoes hanging upside down!)
Our grateful thanks to all our friends, family, employees and local craftsmen who have helped us make this dream come true. Their time, helping hands, the sharing of ideas, encouragement, donations of local memorabilia and items to display are countless.
To all our Guests:
Welcome, we hope you find in our dreams…..
Good Food ~ Good Times ~ Good Friends
~ LD ~
