OUR STORY

After working and managing Post 1467 VFW in Brainerd for 17 years, I decided to purchase my own bar.

June 13th, 1996, I purchased the Happy Hour Bar on 6th Street. The Happy Hour Bar had been in business in downtown Brainerd for nearly 40 years. Along with the bar, I also purchased the building next door which had been vacant since 1994 and in rough shape. At the time, the Happy Hour Bar had this really old beer sign theme. Grain Belt mainly (Home of the GBWC - Grain Belt Wrecking Crew). Wish I still had some of those signs, oh well… We changed the theme of the bar to sports. Memorabilia, larger TV’s, better sound system, etc..

When I purchased the HH bar, it was a tap beer, brandy, whiskey bar. We had of course the cleanest beer lines in Brainerd, cleaned every Sunday. Also they had 14 total bottles of alcohol. I now have 14 bottles on my speed rail. The old owner thought tequila caused problem. So we had to stock that. 

Things got rocking after awhile so I decided to expand to the abandoned building next door. So I called Brad Arnold at Hy-Tec Construction to discuss my thoughts on the new bar expansion. Brad assured me he could make a great bar but the building was bad. We knew that, so the process took awhile. Two meetings where the project was almost abandoned. 

But they got it done and we opened the bar July 3rd, 2003. Which included an outdoor patio. We installed a patio outdoor bar on June 8th 2018. When I purchased the HH bar, they had a membership club called the Loyal order of elbow club with a total of 48 members including me from 91-96. 

From 1996 through August 2023 we now have 22,500+ members.