From the Vaults: Drinking in Tradition

Artifact: A nondescript scrapbook. The inside is filled with photos and articles about an old watering hole called Archie’s Bar.

Back-story: Residents were pleased when they learned that a new business had . The downtown space had sat empty for a discouraging amount of time because of the economic downturn, and now another restaurant and bar would at last reopen in the space.

Looking back at the history, though, it can almost seem that 1022 Mainstreet was fated to have another bar. Many different people have owned the property throughout Hopkins' history, but a bar or saloon of some sort has been at the location for at least 90 years.

The Hopkins Historical Society records that local founding father Daniel E. Dow built a bar there called the Last Chance Saloon that was in operation prior to 1921.

The bar may have been operating several years before that. A 1979 Sun Newspapers article states that Carl and Erick Munson were operating a bar with the same name by at least 1915. West Minneapolis, as Hopkins was called then, was a rural community separated from Minneapolis by miles and miles of farmland. Locals called the Munsons’ bar the Last Chance Saloon or the First Chance Saloon, depending on which way they were heading, the article stated.

Hopkins’ isolation didn’t keep people from having a good time. The city had 13 saloons in 1917, resident Alfred G. Larson wrote in a 1967 manuscript owned by the Historical Society.

By 1921, the Last Chance Saloon had become Glueck Brewing Co. Saloon. Over the next few decades, locals simply called the bar Glueck’s Corner because that was the only beer served there.

Hopkns continued to have its share of drinking spots. Hopkins: Through the Years recalls a GI version of the pub-crawl. Servicemen back from World War II could start at Shady Oak and walk to Blake Road, grabbing a drink at each of the bars along the way. Total cost: $2.50, or just over $30 in today’s dollars.

The bar started its most familiar era when Archie Normandin opened Archie’s Bar in 1946. Normandin sold the business in 1970, but the business persisted for 54 years after it began. Even for longtime Hopkins residents, Archie’s was serving drinks before they were ever allowed to imbibe.

New owners bought the property in 2001 and transformed it into Decoys. The establishment closed in June after 10 years—partly for financial reasons and partly because owner Ken Plunkett had a heart attack.

Richard Eckert, who owns Buffalo Bar and Grill in Buffalo and Ciento Tequila Bar and Mexican Kitchen in Brooklyn Park, is the latest owner to try his hand at the site. Eckert aims to open the Wild Boar in mid-March—marking the start of one more chapter in a long history of watering holes at this particular address.