Dan Patch Lounge is torn down, March 6, 1999 Savage Pacer.
Closing time for Dan Patch Lounge
By Nancy Huddleston editor
Some people referred to it as the powerhouse, a place where you are guaranteed a strong drink.
Others called it Savage’s own “Cheers” where everyone knew everybody else’s name.
And it had a reputation as the place to be on Friday nights to socialize.
No, the Dan Patch Lounge is a pile of rubble along Highway 13. Crews from Blue Earth Environmental Co. started tearing it down last week. The Savage City Council ordered the building demolished last year to make way for redevelopment in the downtown Hamilton District area. When the demolition is complete, the land will become a parking lot for the time being until the city determines a better use for it as redevelopment of the area progresses.
Deb Way, the assistant operations manager for the city’s municipal liquor operations worked at the Dan Patch Lounge for many years. “Over the years the bar got a lot of bad PR and was called a biker bar and such, she said. But it wasn’t, it was a working man’s bar and an atypical community bar…
The original portion of the building was constructed in the 1920s. Over the years the building was used as a townhall, a jail and for liquor operations. Three additions were made in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. The last major work was a facelift in 1985 costing $300,000.
The bar was shut down by the city in 1989…the City kept the package store open down there, but people would come in still looking for the old bar.
