Sadar's Saloon in Elyria

“The saloon was at 46th and Humboldt. It’s gone now. It’s a parking lot.” Joe Sadar remembered.

Matt Sadar arrived in Colorado before 1900 from a town in Slovenia called Novo Mesto. He opened a tavern and boarding house at 3rd Avenue and Powell Street in Elyria (now 46th and Humboldt Street.) Men who worked in the Grant and Globe Smelters could get a room, a lunch packed in a pail, an evening meal and laundry services. Newcomers from the old country, like Jennie Hocevar, cooked, and cleaned in the boarding house while learning English.

Joe Sadar reminisced, “We’d go down to Matt’s with a lard bucket. You could say, ‘I want 25¢ worth of beer,’ and they’d fill it. We’d pass the pail around and everyone would take a sip.

“Matt was so nice. He had the most beautiful hair. It was all gray, but very thick. He had this long bar. and tables you could play cards there and they had a little shelf where you could set your beer. He had pictures of the men working in the smelter. There were these pictures on the wall of a horse and wagon and some kegs of beer on the wagon.”After Prohibition was repealed in 1934, Joe Sadar recalled, “From out of nowhere, beer instantly appeared.”

In 1946, Jack and Frances Brinkerhoff purchased the business and renamed it the Shambles Inn. The bar and restaurant were well known for their beef chili, beef stew and pot roast sandwiches. In 1978, it was bought by the National Western and demolished for a parking lot.

Matt Sadar’s Saloon in 1903 in Elyria