Strasburg tavern closes after 226 years

STRASBURG, Pa. – One of Lancaster County’s oldest businesses, whose clientele morphed over two centuries from upscale travellers to blue-collar locals, served its last drinks Sunday.

But the shutdown of the 226-year-old tavern, the Swan Hotel in Strasburg, has nothing to do with its age.

It’s more about the age of its owner, coupled with the soaring prices of liquor licenses in Lancaster County — a trend that made it prohibitive for someone else to take over.

“It’s time to go,” said owner Craig Harnish, 62, a teetotaller who worked there with his wife Paula. She’s “a couple of years” his senior.

“I’m getting older and it’s time for me to move on and either relax or do something else. Hopefully we’ll do well enough once we sell the (the Swan property and their home next door) that we can retire,” he said.

With Craig Harnish’s 31 years of operating the Swan Hotel behind him, the couple’s goal is to move permanently to their vacation home in Perry County.

The Swan Hotel was established in 1792 as a first-rate provider of lodging, meals and drinks to intrastate guests. It closed as a neighbourhood bar, the upstairs hotel rooms converted long ago into three apartments.

“It’s an absolutely great building. It’s magnificent,” said local historian Tom Lainoff, although its intricate woodwork and brickwork has been largely covered up by modernizing over the years.

Lainhoff, chairman of Strasburg’s Historic Architectural Review Board, said the Swan was “in the top tier” of “a dozen or more taverns” in Strasburg at that time.

The Swan and its fellow establishments served travellers on the busy dirt road connecting Philadelphia to the borough and points west.

But “within a decade, Strasburg’s heyday was over,” as a newly opened paved toll road through Gap, along the route that’s now Lincoln Highway East, siphoned travellers away from Strasburg, he said.

Local appeal

It was the Swan’s more recent history as a gathering place for local residents that drew capacity crowds to the small bar this weekend, though.

About 75 customers, seemingly all of them long-time patrons, packed the Swan elbow to elbow on Sunday afternoon for a joyous final visit to their beloved hangout. Laughter filled the room.

A first-time visitor easily identified the Swan from its prime location between Lancaster Avenue, West Main Street and Miller Street, plus its packed parking lot; the Swan has no exterior sign.

Numerous customers compared the Swan’s community ambiance to the vibe of the bar in the TV sitcom “Cheers,” a show with the theme song “Where Everybody Knows Your Name.”

With that “hometown hangout” feeling, it’s no surprise that a Strasburg native and Lampeter-Strasburg High School graduate such as Craig Harnish owns it.

“I knew I would always see a friend from school or someone I knew from around the area whenever I stopped by on a Friday or Saturday night,” said Strasburg native William Magargle, 28, a seven-year customer.

“This is a great place. Everybody knows everybody,” said Dave Huffer, 55, of Paradise, a customer for 20 years. “It’s going to be sad when it ends.”

Shelly Brennan, 53, of Smoketown, said she and other customers are making plans to keep the Swan community together by organizing bonfires, house parties and other activities.

“There’s such good people here,” said Brennan, a 10-year customer. “If you’ve had a bad day, you can come in there and it’s washed away with love and friendship.”

Melinda Harnish, 43, of Strasburg, whose husband Dustin is the nephew of Craig Harnish, said the Swan fostered a sense of community through its “welcoming” atmosphere and its leagues for darts, pool and softball.

“There’s no other place like this to congregate,” she said.

Market forces

The ages of the Harnishes aren’t the only factor that prompted the tavern to shut for good.

Craig Harnish said soaring prices for state liquor licenses in Lancaster County made it virtually impossible for the 2 Miller St. tavern to continue under new ownership.

Prices for local licenses sold at state-run auctions have doubled to more than $300,000 since a 2016 law let supermarket and convenience store chains bid on them, pushing the price beyond a small operator’s reach.

Most licenses, however, change hands for undisclosed amounts in private transactions, as the Swan’s is doing.

According to LCB records, the Swan license is being sold to Weis Markets for its Gap supermarket. Craig Harnish declined to disclose the price.

The price trend is fortuitous for sellers such as Craig Harnish who bought their licenses decades ago.

“The bad part of it is, you lose the local bar,” he acknowledged.

The Swan’s building will be listed for sale in the near future, Craig Harnish said. Several interested parties have contacted him about it already, he said. He has yet to set its asking price.

The Swan was a small business, consisting of just 22 seats at the bar, 14 seats at tables and a room with a single pool table. Smoking was permitted there, because less than 20 per cent of the tavern’s revenue came from selling food.

The Harnishes were joined by six part-time employees, who Craig Harnish called “the greatest help in the world.” He thanked his employees and customers for making the Swan prosper.

Craig Harnish was in the news in 1970, when as a 14 year old he got out of his family car to help a stranded motorist. Another car struck him; he lost both legs below the knees.

His accident triggered an outpouring of community support that lasted for months.

While Craig Harnish was successful at running a tavern, the venture was not his first calling.

Craig Harnish had been a bookkeeper at several local oil companies, including one owned by his parents, when he decided he wanted a career change.

A friend who was in the tavern business suggested he consider it.

“I was lucky enough that the hometown tavern was for sale. It was just a great thing. We knew quite a bit of the people there. I had drank there at an earlier age, before I bought it,” he said.

Ironically, Harnish said he stopped drinking when he turned 21, because the excitement of underage drinking disappeared but the headaches he always got the next morning remained.

“I’m not against drinking,” he said. “It’s just not my cup of tea.”

Even though the tavern business was Craig Harnish’s second career choice, it proved to be the correct choice for him.

“It’s a great business to be in. There’s nothing like being able to talk with friends all day and make money doing it…,” he said. “It’s a wonderful experience.”

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Information from: LNP, http://lancasteronline.com