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SALEM – The Power House Cafe will open on April 1 at 7 a.m., owner Tonia Gerber said Tuesday and it will be interviewing potential employees from 11 a.m. until 7 p.m. today.
Located at 530 S. Broadway Ave., the Power House Cafe is the former Gus and Gerb’s Side Door Lounge.
Gerber said it will be “a soft opening” and the menu will have a select variety of “Gerber burgers,” along with haddock, homemade soup, chili and hand-cut potatoes. A complete line of domestic beers will be sold.
The interior has received fresh paint, floor touch-ups are by Custom Tile, while new brass chairs, four pool tables and a new flat-screen television set have all been added.
Gerber, who has been away from the business for nearly five years, sold it in 2009 and reclaimed it last October after it had been closed for several months.
Before selling it, Gerber owned and operated it as Gus and Gerb’s Side Door Lounge for 35 years with the help of her husband, Jim, who died a year ago.
She said all the licenses are in place and all the painting and refurbishing was achieved with volunteer help.
A large mural on the north interior wall proclaiming “Power House Cafe” and depicting Tonia and Jim was created by Atomic Bob of Salem with cans of spray paint.
Another interior painting, on the south wall next to the bar, also depicting Tonia and Jim, is the work of local artist Brad Vingle,
The Power House Cafe traces its lineage to the pre-1920s era.
Gerber bought it from McDevitt and Ripley who bought it from Fitch and Callatone, who bought it from Jim Irey. Before that it was Bodernia’s Side Door.
“No one ever kept it over a year other than Bodernia and me,” she said.
The 3,200 square foot cafe has received a going over with the floors, walls, woodwork, coolers, tables, chairs all being upgraded and new furnace added.
Dwain Kale, a former bartender at the Side Door, will manage the cafe which has a tenured reputation in Salem’s storied history dating back to when prohibition was the law of the land in 1926 and it was known as a cafe back then.
Gerber said the hours will be 7 a.m. until 1 a.m. For more information, call 330-332-3338.