75 Years, One Family, One Bar: Johnie’s Tap Is Stuart at Its Best
This Saturday, August 8, Johnie’s Tap celebrates 75 years in business. Same family. Same building. Same bar stools, if you want to get specific about it.
Honestly, Johnie’s is the kind of business that explains the Chamber better than any mission statement ever could.
Seventy-five years does not happen by accident. It means people kept showing up. It means the business mattered enough for one generation to hand it to the next, and for the community to keep supporting it the whole way.
And I know a bar is not everyone’s cup of tea. That is fine. But in a small town, places like Johnie’s are more than a place to grab a drink. They are where people meet after work, where old friends catch up, where fundraisers happen, where stories get told, and where people come back to when they are in town. A lot of community life happens in a place like that, in a way that is hard to explain until you have lived it.
To me, that is what the Chamber is for. We are here to support the businesses that make Stuart feel like Stuart. Not just the new ones, not just the shiny ones, not just the ones that fit neatly into a brochure.
A LESSON I LEARNED TOO SLOWLY
Here is the part of this story I do not usually lead with.
Before this run with the Chamber, I spent ten years as a bar owner myself. I bought Ruby’s Pub in 2007, when I was 27 years old. Ruby’s sits right next door to Johnie’s, and the two bars have been neighbors long before I ever walked in. Ruby Waltz was behind her bar forever. Johnie was behind his forever. That was just how Stuart worked.
On the wall at Johnie’s hangs a plaque from the Waltz family. It reads: “Johnies Tap. Never Competitors, Always Friends.”
I did not appreciate what that plaque meant for a lot of years. I was young and inexperienced, and I tried to cover that up by being overly confident. I was not a great neighbor for longer than I care to admit. I used to get genuinely worked up watching customers leave my place and walk next door to Johnie’s. Of all the hard lessons the bar business taught me, that one took the longest: those customers walking next door were probably the best outcome either of us, or the downtown as a whole, could have hoped for. A more vibrant downtown means more foot traffic for everyone.
Audrey and Johnie were sitting on decades of knowledge I could have and should have been learning from. In all honesty, I probably did not fully understand what I had missed until after I sold Ruby’s and grew through some other life lessons. Looking back, it is one of the things I would change if I could. I would embrace them as neighbors instead of being dismissive of how they ran their business.
Funny thing is, the neighborhood worked anyway, even with me being stubborn. When I added the kitchen at Ruby’s, my goal was to make our money early so I did not have to be there until 2 a.m. every night. We would wind things down by 9 or 10, and the folks who were still out and wanted a nightcap and some jukebox tunes would head next door to Johnie’s. Never competitors. Always friends. It took me years to see it, and the plaque had been on the wall the whole time.
WHAT AUDREY KNOWS
When we interviewed Audrey Gomez ahead of the anniversary, I paid close attention to her answers about keeping a business alive this long. They read like a small business course you cannot take anywhere else.
Traditions are important, and faithful customers are necessary. Small towns run on repeat business, so you treat customers right, every visit. Loyalty comes from friendliness and respect, nothing fancier than that. Be open, keep set hours, and advertise so people know. Adapt when things change, because they always do. Johnie’s has outlasted price increases, smoking law changes, new technology, and COVID, when everything went to-go and faithful customers kept the lights on. And when she was asked what success looks like today, her answer was simple: Johnie’s has been around 75 years, and that is success in any business.
She is right. I lasted ten years in the bar business, and there were plenty of sleepless nights wondering how I was going to pay staff, keep the lights on, or sometimes just buy another case of beer. Every business runs in cycles. There are days nothing goes your way, and there are days everything you touch turns to gold, though I suspect any business owner would tell you the golden ones do not come around nearly often enough. Keeping one business alive through 75 years of those cycles, in the same family, is nothing short of incredible.
Look at how often the news out of bigger cities, and honestly out of towns just like ours, is another bar closing. Owning any small business is hard. Owning a bar is especially tough. Laws change, habits change, and everyone is competing for the same dollar. Johnie’s has not just survived all of that. It is still a vital part of this community, still at the center of Good Egg Days, still the place where people talk to each other in person, tell stories, and escape reality for a bit when life calls for it. Business owners do not stay put the way Johnie and Ruby did anymore. Costs, insurance, laws, and family dynamics have all changed the math. Audrey is a throwback in the best of ways, and the loyalty her customers show her is tremendous. Any of us would be lucky to earn a fraction of it.
COME RAISE A GLASS
The 75th anniversary celebration is this Saturday, August 8, and it takes over the street:
– 11 a.m.: Registration for the cornhole and singles cribbage tournaments
– Noon: Tournaments begin ($25 cornhole entry, $10 cribbage)
– 5 p.m.: Free will donation smoked food dinner, proceeds to the Cottage Pantry
– 7 to 10 p.m.: Live music and street dance with Oreo Meatwagon
– $2 Jell-O shots all celebration long
A mission statement can say we support local business. Johnie’s shows what that actually means. Come on down Saturday, congratulate Audrey, and see 75 years of Stuart for yourself.
I will be there. This time, I know exactly which side of that plaque I want to be on.
— Nate Westre
