Local pub to launch weekend breakfast to help survive pandemic

Pajamas are encouraged as Mack's Tavern founder seeks to make up for loss of late-night business

Credit: Dayton.com

If you’re the owner of a bar that does 70 percent of its business after 10 p.m., and you listen as the governor of your state announces all bars in Ohio will have to cease alcohol sales after 10 p.m., what do you do?

MacKenzie Manley, founder and owner of Mack’s Tavern at 381 Miamisburg-Centerville Road in Washington Twp., faced that precise dilemma. Her answer: Start serving breakfast — pajamas not only allowed, but encouraged.

“I had been throwing around the breakfast idea and trying to come up with ideas for food while trying to decide if it was even worth doing since June,” Manley said. “On Thursday, when Dewine spoke, I decided to pull the trigger.”

“I need to do something to try to make up for lost revenue. Closing at 10 p.m. will put the nail in the coffin for us, if it continues until November like ordered. We are going to lose so much, and I have tried to do everything else to survive, why not become a breakfast diner? Right now I’d sell my soul to pay rent if anyone would buy it.”

So on the weekend of Aug. 15-16 — “and every weekend after that until it doesn’t work anymore” — Mack’s Tavern will serve a full breakfast menu from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., Manley said.

“My concept is, come as you are in your Walmart best,” the Mack’s Tavern owner told this news outlet. “My bartenders will be serving in pajamas, and I’d like customers to come in PJ’s, too. I mean, rolling out of bed on a Saturday or Sunday is hard enough, let alone to get up put on makeup, fix your hair, put in contacts and make yourself presentable to go out and eat breakfast just to go back home and veg out on the couch. So pajamas are recommended, so much so that if you come in and you are in your PJ’s, your coffee will be free."

“Also, you can play pool or darts while you eat breakfast. Where else can you do that?”

Breakfast service has been a mainstay for some local pubs, and earlier this summer, both Archer’s Tavern locations in Kettering and Centerville started offering breakfast seven days a week earlier this summer.

Manley is planning an extensive menu that includes Bacon Sausage gravy and biscuits; a breakfast sandwich with sausage, bacon, egg and cheese “served on a little pond of gravy;” English muffin pizzas; French toast sticks; Belgium waffles with a choice of toppings such as S’mores with chocolate syrup, marshmallows, whipped cream, bacon and Graham cracker crumbles; strawberry shortcake; and apple pie.

“I’ll have a few other items, but those will be the main choices,” Manley said. “There will be huge portions, sloppy, messy, and delicious, I guarantee that.

“I’m just being inventive and am going to keep trying new things to get us through until this is all over. So now there’s a new diner in town and I plan to make it work.”

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