JT's Tavern in Mishawaka turns around the reputation of its location
MISHAWAKA, Ind. --- If you’re looking for a new place to enjoy food and drinks, play table games, and listen to live music, you’re in luck because JT’s Tavern wants you to come on in.
“We’d really like to fill that local spot where you can just run around the corner, grab some beer with your friends and you know there’s going to be something cool going on,” says Megan Graham, co-owner of JT’s Tavern.
Tucked away on a stretch of industrial buildings in Mishawaka sits JT’s Tavern. The new venue serves as a spot for locals to enjoy food and drinks, play games, and listen to live music, but Graham said it was a tough journey from buying the property to opening their doors.
“We bought it as Saddle Up Saloon in December and we were like ‘Cool, a cute little dive bar’. It was basically a pool hall, and we started getting a little bit more of the backstory,” said Graham. “That’s when we realized that it maybe didn’t have the best reputation, a lot of crazy stuff have happened over the course of time and a lot of people were kind of just spooked and didn’t want to come.”
When Graham and other co-owner Skyler Smith decided to purchase the property, they knew it would be more than cleaning up the building itself, but also cleaning up its reputation that was left from previous owners and businesses.
“There was rumors of drug use, and it was on the cop’s radar, and there were fights that broke out, and it was packed,” Graham added.
But after a complete overhaul, JT’s Tavern opened its doors and has been growing within the last eight months of business.
“It picked up because the pool leagues came and started doing stuff here, a couple of the teams transferred over. Then, unfortunately Smokestack closed at the beginning of March, and so bands were looking for another place to go to so word kind of came around that there was this new stage with the sound with the lights and all this stuff,” Graham said. “So they started picking our brains and they’ve been working with us on trying to keep their prices low so we can get new people in the door and they get another place to play.”
However, owners are still trying to convince locals that JT’s Tavern is a whole new atmosphere from what the spot used to be.
“Now they’re like ‘Well I heard about that place I don’t think so’, and we’re like ‘No really, we’re clean and nice and please come and see us!’” Graham laughs.