Benchwarmers up for sale
Published 6:00 am Thursday, May 27, 2021
- This is how the interior of Benchwarmers Pub & Grill appeared about 100 years ago when it was named Herman’s Tavern.
LA GRANDE — An iconic La Grande business now is for sale.
Benchwarmers Pub and Grill, 210 Depot St., has been put up for sale by its owner, Matt Scarfo, who is chairman of the Union County Board of Commissioners.
Scarfo, who also owns Longbranch Bar and Eats, said that he is putting Benchwarmers on the market because he wanted to have more time to focus on his work as county commissioner and owner of the Longbranch.
“I can’t focus all of my time on all three. It was time for me to lighten my load,” he said.
Scarfo said parting with Benchwarmers will be hard because of his longtime ties to it.
“I’m very sad. I have loved operating it,” he said.
Scarfo purchased Benchwarmers in 2005 after working there for seven years after graduating from Eastern Oregon University in 1998.
He said operating it has been enjoyable because of all the interesting people he has met in the process, including its employees and customers.
“Everyone has a good Benchwarmers story,” Scarfo said.
He hopes that whoever purchases the business will continue operating it as the same business.
“I want to be able to go in there after I sell it and enjoy it as Benchwarmers,” Scarfo said.
The building Benchwarmers is in has a long history as a restaurant and tavern. Scarfo has photos of it as a restaurant and tavern dating back to 1904.
La Grande historian Bob Bull said the building at 210 Depot St. housed a business named State Saloon and Billiard Parlor in 1912. Bull said from 1920 through the early 1950s the business operated there had many names including Herman’s Quick Lunch, Herman’s Tavern, Herman’s Rail School Center, Herman’s Lunch and Herman’s Place.
The business became known as Herman’s Lunch and Tavern in the mid-1950s, a name it held through at least 1968, Bull said. The business by 1971 was listed as Herman’s Tavern, which it was known as through the mid-1990s before it became Benchwarmers.
The individual for whom the business was long named is believed to have been Herman Roesch, who was listed as its proprietor in the 1920s, Bull said.
