Story & Blog
A digital space reserved for stories we find – from customers and neighbors.
Olive Street Tarvern
Oliver Street has a rich tradition of cold beer and good times—and we’re proud to carry that
legacy forward. Our own story is rooted right here in local history: just about eight blocks from where our Brewhouse now stands at 5 th and Oliver, Matt Bille’s great-grandfather, saloonkeeper Herman Schroeder ran a pub outside the gates of Buffalo Bolt at the corner of Oliver and East Avenue.
Before Prohibition, he was known for serving nickel beers and a free lunch to the hardworking
men of the area. After World War II and well into the late 1970s, Oliver Street was the place for a night out in Niagara County. There’s even an urban legend that Oliver Street once had more bars per mile than anywhere else in the country. By the 1980s, the chicken wing had become just as iconic as the street itself. Anyone who grew up around here remembers 10-cent wings and $1 pints—a golden era of good eats and great beer.
Today, we’re proud to be part of that tradition, keeping the spirit of wing eating and beer
drinking alive and well on Oliver Street.
“Each day many things happened with so much activity and so many people drinking, eating, working and putting coins in the saloon’s player piano. I recall attempted robberies, a fire, a suicide, Mr. & Mrs. Santa Claus coming on Christmas Eve bringing gifts to me, travelling marionettes performing in the bar …”
page 3, Loretta Schroeder’s “870 Oliver Street.”