Owners, management share opening restaurant experience in Phillips
Winchesters has returned to Phillips!
After a soft opening starting on May 3, the management of Winchesters Saloon announced that a grand opening and ribbon cutting ceremony will be held Tuesday, June 13, at 5:30 p.m.
On the heels of their housing development projects in Phillips, Barrcon owners Darren Bartunek and Jeff Reed discussed how they have brought their “dream” restaurant into reality and the reaction from the community.
“It’s been ecstatic, been great,” Reed said. “They love having the bar back open, love having a place to go eat food.”
With the restaurant now open Tuesday through Thursday from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m., and 11 a.m. to 1 a.m. Friday and Saturday, the owners have reported that the weekends are when the place has been packed.
“I’d say there’s no seats,” Reed said. “We’re full on Friday and Saturday nights almost to the point where we have to turn some people away.”
One of the bigger shifts after the opening was in focusing more on the restaurant than the bar aspect of the saloon, leaving them with only one regret.
“It’s pretty much everything we wanted, it turned out great,” Reed continued. “Our only regret is (we) wish our kitchen was bigger. We found out we were more of a restaurant than we were a bar. In retrospect, if we had known that, we would have made our kitchen a little bit better.”
The two stated their goal with the restaurant was to focus on the basics of American food with their kitchen manager’s Anthony Altana’s unique twist.
“We didn’t want to overthink the kitchen and make it too difficult to prepare meals for people,” Reed said. “So we just want to keep it hamburgers, chicken sandwiches, wings, salads and fries. I think our food has been a hit.”
The owners have also found a quality staff to help keep up with the flow of people coming in over the past month, hiring about 15 employees for full-time or part-time positions, including three bartenders.
“We were lucky to get (general manager) Katie Hibbs, she’s got a wealth of experience (over 20 years) and she hired Anthony,” Reed stated. “First week, he was our only cook. It was a rough first week because it was busy, then we brought on a second cook and kind of kitchen preps, a couple of young guys that are learning how to cook and being assistants back there. So our kitchen really bolstered our second week.”
Hibbs commented that she was excited to be in at the beginning of a new enterprise.
“It’s enjoyable, this part of this experience being on the ground floor,” she said. “I’m just getting back to the basics, almost what I’ve done for a long time, so it’s just nice, getting back to what I know how to do.”
Since the last interview with the owners in August, Winchesters has become more or less what was described in the earlier description.
The western and outdoor hunting theme stretches around the walls, from the mounted heads of various game, old-time signage, barbwire accents, mounted guns including a wooden rifle that was a part of the original Winchester Restaurant.
A new addendum to that are the laser engraved tables courtesy of Greg Dollman, a friend of Bartunek’s.
“This was just something he wanted to do. It’s not something he does for a living,” Bartunek said.
“He was gracious, he didn’t charge us,” Reed added. “We just had to buy the wood. He’s just a good friend of Darren’s. He’s just a good guy.”
The tables each feature unique designs with traditional Americana, hunting symbols, diagrams of Colt .45s and Winchester rifles.
Another addition to the decor is held on the shelf above the “Cowgirl’s” restroom with a red, white and blue motorcycle, a poster of the movie “Easy Rider” and Ramie’s Rides sign, an upcoming motorcycle cycle business.
“When he (owner Ramie Walling) found out that we were opening the bar, I think he really thought it was good time to kind of launch his motorcycle shop over there,” Reed said. “He had repairs and sells them, but I think he had dreams of having a showroom. So he’s looking to expand his business on the corner across the street (from Winchesters), but that is good for us. We just thought that he was going to do that, and we wanted to put that chopper up there. We thought it would be kind of nice to give him a little shout out.”
The western theme also extends to the casino gaming-like machines area near the front door with the double swinging doors and barb wire sign leading in to the private area.
“We want people to come in and sit down and relax, to be able to have a beer after work and do what they enjoy doing,” Reed said. “A lot of people enjoy playing those machines.”
Based on requests from patrons, the saloon also hosts a dart board near the outside dining area. Reed said that this was in line with having the back end to be fun.
“Instead of having people back here eating, we do want to make it more of a recreation area,” he said.
Another aspect discussed before was the grocery and store aspect of the saloon. Reed said that while that is a goal, it is not the main goal at this time.
“We’re still going to, probably, do that,” he clarified. “But that’s not been our focus right now. We are selling ice, which I think has been good.”
The saloon also offers candy and ice cream to encourage kids to stop in after fun in the sun.
“Yeah, it’s baseball season, so when the little league kids get done they come in and we want to make sure we had something for the kids,” Reed stated.
The saloon has and will host a variety of events and specials over the course of the calender. On May 20, the saloon hosted a Day At the Races After Party with pulled-pork sandwiches, potato salad and baked beans and the owners said there are more to come.
“We talked about a lot of things,” Reed said. “We don’t really have anything on the schedule yet. I know there are a couple of different musicians that want to come play here.”
He went on to say that the saloon is looking for a variety of genres and bands from two-man bands mostly up to five-man bands.
Bartunek and Reed said that they want to appeal to all demographics, to the old timers to the new families moving in.
“It’s exciting, I mean it was cool to see a lot of young people,” Reed said.
“People get to meet here, too,” Bartunek added. “People that don’t see the neighbors down the street. It’s an easy way for people to actually get to meet each other that wouldn’t normally meet (the people) that live five houses or eight houses down. It’s a good spot for getting everybody connected back to the small town.”
As for the future, the duo stated that they hope the restaurant keeps going as strong as its debut.
“We just want to stay in our momentum,” Reed concluded. “It’s always just smooth. It’s busy. We just hope that doesn’t fall off. I want to keep growing.”