Still snookered, Pastime returns as a sports bar

You can find a photo inside the Pastime in 1949, which might have been the grand opening.

"From what I've heard from a lot of the locals that have been around since then, this was the Pastime Sports Center, but it included a magazine stand and a soda fountain," said Ryan Reilly, who has reopened the business with his sister and brother-in-law after it has been shuttered for two years.

"Also, kids could get their cleats and mitts and stuff for sports here," Reilly said. "At one point ,a shoe shining station was here, too."

Reilly said he bought the 119 W. Main Ave. building in July.

"We really loved the old antique nature of the building and wanted to make plans to renovate the upstairs."

Reilly said the second floor plans are still to be determined, "thinking to become apartments, an air bnb or a community gathering space. We're still about a year, two years out before we're really excited to actually come up with an idea for the upstairs."

Reilly said his first priority is to restore the Pastime, "to what everybody in the community remembers." He said he stripped off paint and got back to a wood finish with a poly shine.

"We really wanted to make sure everybody remembered the old Pastime as they grew up knowing about it and used to visit.

Reilly said he has partnered with the Herd 5C Ranch in Ritzville to provide his beef.

"I had some of their beef as a Christmas present and it was really good," he said. "I really like the idea that it's locally-sourced beef from a Ritzville company and it also tastes really darned good."

In terms of beverages his bar will serve, Reilly said, "I'm an IPA fan.. I knew I had to have one of those on tap. Then from a spirits perspective, I'm still learning that one and taking requests to fill in my bar. As I hear things are more popular, what people are looking for, those are things I start ordering. I think I have more whiskeys than any other drink to purchase. And then we'd like to work on some specialty drinks like white Russians, trash cans and Jager bombs and things like that."

Right now Reilly said the food menu includes hamburgers, roasts for our French dip sandwiches down the road. I would like to have a steak night once a month. I would love to offer those as well as certain dinner specials weekday nights and weekends."

Reilly said they are tweaking the delivery system to offer pizza.

"My biggest seller is my signature herd burger," Reilly said. I'm getting a lot of rave reviews around that. Some of my bartenders have heard, 'best burger I've ever had,' that type of feedback."

Reilly said he will offer a pulled pork sandwich and a pork chop night, "the rest is just regular bar food, appetizers like mozzarella sticks, onion rings, fries and tater tots. And then, from an entree perspective, chicken wings, chicken strips and those types of items."

Reilly said he was happy to inherit an antique snooker table, a fairly rare item nowadays at dining and drinking establishments.

Reilly said this is the first time he has been his own boss," I worked 15 years for T-Mobile, the last five as an asset protection manager, teaching safety and security to store managers."

The Pastime is opens at 11 a.m. each day, "and then Sunday through Thursday we're open until 10 p.m. at the latest, then on weekends we'll be open at 11 a.m. until 2 a.m. "if there's enough people down here."

He said the lunch clientele and evening customers provide pretty much a 50-50 split, and his soup offerings are bringing in the crowd.

Those recipes, he said, need to be credited to his mom, Theresa Abney, a hospital dietary manager.