A tavern from the past

Mike Weston watches out the window of his bar on Cuming Street. This is his 41st year behind the bar, which besides beer also sells jerky, peanuts, combs and nail clippers.

By KELLI MUTCHLER
Scene Editor

Turning 21 can add a new taste to alcohol, but for a bar that’s 61, drinking takes on an old tradition of service.

If the shag carpet on the walls of Westons Tavern doesn’t give away its age, the original ’40s woodwork of the bar shelves should. Weston’s has been family operated since the day it opened on Cuming Street in 1945.

Current owner Mike Weston began working for his father when he was 22. Before that, he spent two years at Creighton and two years in the Army. But when Weston decided a third year of college was not for him, he took over for his dad and has worked there ever since.

“Been here a long time and seen a lot of changes,” said Weston, now 72.

The decorations have changed a little. The red-flecked shag carpet went up in 1983, when Weston got the idea to stop painting the walls. Along the back, three wooden telephone booths now stand empty of receivers. After Weston’s father was robbed, a door lock was added for security.

Other things have stayed the same. The black-and-white photos hanging on the walls, which show Weston’s dad and his champion race horses, are as old as the building. Weston now has one employee, but he still puts in more than 80 hours of work a week.

Weston, who raises thoroughbreds and has his father’s pasion for horses, said he never worried about doing anything different for a job.

Mike Donner, project manager for infrastructure at DoIT and second-year MBA graduate student, said Westons friendly service is one reason he enjoys a drink there.

“It’s definitely a one-man show. He’s the guy who will pour you a drink, but he’s also the guy who will listen to your woes of the day,” Donner said. “And if you frequent enough, he’ll recognize your name.”

Donner, who visits the bar with teammates from the DoIt intramural sports teams, said he also likes the quiet atmosphere more than the noisy scene at The Jay.

Josh Kendrick, a fourth-year EMS student, said the atmosphere is better at Westons because there is a smaller crowd and more places to sit. Like Donner, he said the solo service is what makes the bar unique.

“When we try to decide where to go out, it’s not ‘let’s go to the bar,’ it’s ‘let’s go talk to Mike,’” Kendrick said.

Donner said that at Westons, no one pushes through crowds or waits to be served drinks. And as Weston himself will attest, the options are basic because he has nothing on tap and serves mainly domestic beers and some hard alcohol, all priced around $2.

Even though Kendrick said he had his doubts the first time he saw the bar, he changed his mind once he got inside.

“I like it too much to call it a hole in the wall, but it’s definitely a unique place that hasn’t changed since the ’50s,” Donner said.