On a white supremacist web forum I noticed Olympia being discussed and The Spar was suggested as a great place for sale.

Gee, I thought you were a restaurant and bar/lounge too. Is that really not viable anymore? I know many places have been closing because of the smoking ban, but I think that what may happen is that eventually the restaurants that were able to stick it out will get all of their business. The first day I drove through this town over 15 years ago, it was the Spar that we went to for breakfast. I found it captivating. It was election day and it was all abuzz with locals talking aobut the election. I don't know what the issues were, but it was one of the reasons we decided to stay here. Too bad you will have to sell and I hope that whoever takes it over will keep it as it is. Great food.

You'll get not much from me. All of the things listed affected many other businesses as well. It seems to me that maybe The Spar's business model wouldn't be viable anywhere, except in a universe where all of the things he mentioned did not exist. It's sad to see a business close, but in this case, I'm confident (hopeful) that someone will buy it, keep it The Spar, and this change will be a good one for downtown. (And the food really isn't anything special as it is now.)

If it's not The Spar, Olympia will be talking about this one for years.

Well, the milkshakes are okay. But other than that, ugh! I love the atmosphere, the hat-hooks on the barstools, and the way it's really easy to pretend it's 1933 when I'm sitting inside the Spar, but the food is not a draw for me. Maybe rather then blaming all those liberal voters who are out to ruin his life, Mr. McWain should have considered that hiring a good cook and then keeping him/her happy would have improved the viability of the Spar as a business.

Considering all we have lost during the last six years, the 21st century has been a real bummer. Losing the Spar would be par for the course, but I, for one, would really miss the place a little bit more than I would most other places.

During the late 1950s and early 1960s, before my little brother was presentable in public, my Dad and I would occasionally have breakfast in the Spar on Saturdays. Just the two of us. I have very vivid memories of watching the guy behind the cashier's counter lowering the big blackboard to chalk in the latest sports scores. And observing old guys in fedoras (back when men wore hats) lighting up their cigars on the eternal flame the Spar had available on a little pedestal. And I loved the neon chrome following the shape of the room. I was with my hero, my Dad, in a place that was fun. It was sort of a guy type of place too. I suppose it was, for a kid of 4-6 years old, a part of the rite of passage into the male world of the Eisenhower-JFK era. My Dad is gone now, but that special bit of memory comes back whenever I enter the Spar.

There are other bits of memory brain cells that get lit up whenever I step through the doors of 114 4th Ave E. -- I learned to drink coffee there. I sat down and forced myself to acquire a taste for Spar coffee before the days of espresso and Starbucks, etc. And as downtown Olympia basically died in the late 1960s, early 1970s, the Spar survived where many others perished. During the 1970s it was strange for me, as a local and TESC student, to watch the Evergreen arbiters of hip declare the Spar a cool place in a retro kind of way. We Evergroovers would hang out there and have the kind of conversations you can only have during the magic college years and the jaded waitresses regarded us with detached amusement.

For true retro, they should've visited the other Spar. Yes, there were two of them. Originally, I'm told, started by the same guy. At least they looked the same from the outside. But once you got inside the other Spar, it was a much rougher, two-fisted, Old West type of place. It was on Heron St. in Aberdeen and I think vanished in the late 70s, early 80s.

But back to the Olympia Spar-- About 1976 I remember eating there during Halloween and seeing the place fill up with pirates. Or eating at the counter near the door of the Highclimber Room with my girlfriend about 1979 and being stranded on a linoleum island when the hired help spilled a giant vat of grease. Or sitting in the Highclimber Room and enjoying watching the Evergreen profs unwind a bit.

But the big-ticket memory was when I met my now-wife-of-almost-24-years in the Spar in Olympia in late 1980 or the first days of 1981. At a window seat. I love the fact that I can still walk into that place and recall all this stuff, and much much much more that I won't bore you with, without having to work too hard. This is due to the fact that the Spar has changed very little compared to most other places around Olympia. Us old-time guys need a place like the Spar as an anchor to help us maintain a sense of place.

During the mid -1980s I was living in Pullman and working at WSU. A co-worker of mine (who I am now happily working with again) told me she was moving to Olympia. My first piece of advice was, "Go visit the Spar."

Sell the Spar, OK. But the new owners need to realize, and I'm speaking here as loyal local, the place is more just a restaurant. It is an institution. Kill the Spar and a bit of the best part of Olympia dies with it.

Wow emmett, I didn't think of that! It makes great sense for the McMenamin bros to purchase the place. The Kennedy school and Taj are great places in PDX.