Hamlin Pub shooting for late July, August opening in St. Clair
A new sports bar will soon take a corner spot at Riverview Plaza in St. Clair.
Taking the place of Drifter’s Restaurant and Lounge, renovations of the space for Hamlin Pub have been underway for several months, and according to its owners, are on track to open later this summer.
Much of the interior is still torn-up mid-construction as they shift where the bar and seating will be.
However, Jim Tavano, a partner in the business, pointed to site plans late last week, emphasizing the dual setting they’re hoping to establish by maintaining and expanding seating outdoors on the plaza.
“It’d be nice to have the exterior open for the boat races and the interior the middle of August,” he said Thursday, referring to the St. Clair River Classic Offshore Powerboat Races that start July 28. “That’s the goal. Nothing’s set in stone. We’re still running into the supply chain issues.”
Unlike other Hamlin locations, Tavano said they’ll have tall-pane windows that will allow the pub to open to the outside and take advantage of the warmer months, as well as a year-round sports bar setting.
It’d be the ninth Hamlin location in Michigan after another site in the works in Davison — their first sites in St. Clair and Genesee counties, respectively.
The one at Riverview Plaza, 201 N. Riverside Ave., will also mark their first with a waterfront view.
This weekend, the pub’s three other partners acknowledged owning other restaurants in businesses in the area. Still, John DeAngelis added, “We look forward to being here.”
What will Hamlin Pub be like?
Tavano described the Hamlin menu as American fare. Their online menu lists appetizers and wings, burgers, sandwiches, a host of entrees, and a new summer menu featuring multiple shrimp dishes and seasonal salads.
The atmosphere itself, Tavano said, combines the sports and pub part of their origin with an indoor and outdoor seating capacity of over 200, a variety of planned community tables, and access to watch sporting events with every turn of the head.
“Pub tables, which are community tables, so people sit around (together). This community table sits eight. In this store, there’ll be 50 TVs,” Tavano said. “Sunday football. Weekend football, Super Bowl, NHL, NBA, any sporting event. And our biggest day of the year: St. Patty’s Day. Because we’re a sports pub.”
How did this get started?
After opening their site in Richmond, Tavano said they “were looking for areas that have good demographics, not a lot of competition, and in need of a sports bar.”
Then, at a Richmond chamber meeting, he said they struck up a conversation about St. Clair with St. Clair County Board Jeff Bohm.
“He said, ‘Well, I have an idea for you,’” Tavano said. “So, I came over and met him in this plaza.”
Bohm has been outspoken on the variety of entertainment — with over 100 musical acts slated this summer to perform — lined up and sponsored over the last several years.
And Tavano said they were looking to help capitalize on offering socializers another option for a place "people can go to before and after a concert” and “bring more traffic to the site all year round because sports is more prominent when” outdoor entertainment isn’t.
Currently, Tavano said they have some people training and working at other stores who’ll transfer over to the St. Clair site.
But he said they expected to begin hiring the rest of the 40 to 50 people needed to work at Hamlin in mid-July.
“We’re lucky that we can expand after what we just went through in the last three years, put it that way,” Tavano said. “… And our success has always been driven by the staff. They don’t come to see me. It’s our staff (that is) why we’re successful.”
For more information, visit the Hamlin Pub’s St. Clair Facebook page or the establishment’s website at https://hamlinpubs.com.
Contact Jackie Smith at (810) 989-6270 or jssmith@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter @Jackie20Smith.
This article originally appeared on Port Huron Times Herald: Hamlin Pub shooting for late July, August opening in St. Clair
