Local Watering Holes

The history we could find on the place is this so far: It was Cecil's in the 1960s & 1970s, Westwood Ranch House 1970s-1980s, Caribbean Club late 1980s-1990s. Then it went back to being Westwood Ranch House (information & photo courtesy of Kurt Ehinger). It's been Shots for about the past 10 years. We were told there is still a bar in the basement but it is not open to the public. More history from Pete Walsh: "It was Westwood Ranch House owned by Jack Woods for years. There was a house across the driveway where he lived, gone now. He also ran a riverboat for a while. The building has grown over the years. The main bar was a nice horseshoe bar up by the front door where there is a meeting room now. There were two banquet rooms and a large walk in cooler in the basement. The stairwell to the basement was also by the front door and is gone now. The current main bar was a back bar used mainly for events like concerts. The Middleton Trio with Sparky Harris used to play...

  Back in 1890, this building opened as the North Star Saloon and Hotel which closed sometime in the early 1900s. It became Mill Creek Tavern in 1999, and no one we talked to was definite about the time in between. But to be fair, our servers were all fairly new. The current owner, Scott Ingersoll, bought the business in December of 2021. From comments in some facebook history groups (thanks, Jamie Wasilchenko & Nan Schichtel), the following information came to light. Joseph Thiel was an immigrant from Germany who owned the hotel at the time of his death in 1913. And courtesy of Travis Brown:  When the Soldier's Home (Veterans Facility) was built along the Grand River near North park, there was a federal law that prohibited alcohol sales within one mile of the Soldiers Home. Comstock Park was just beyond that one mile threshold and as a result numerous bars sprung up there. Betty's BBQ was somewhere near Mill Creek Tavern, and  Louie's may have been at this location o...