Kayla DeLoe, of Olympia, uses her cellphone to take a photo of a dollar bill that she stapled to the ceiling of the Brooklyn Tavern in 2005. DeLoe and a friend took a day trip to the tavern on Tuesday afternoon. Co-owner Ciara Brough, who was bar tending that day, said the couple were the only customers she had all day.
Kayla DeLoe, left, and James Tortella, both of Olympia, attempt to decipher some on some of the colorful wall ornaments at the Brooklyn Tavern on Tuesday afternoon near Cosmopolis.
Nearly every single inch of wall space at the Brooklyn Tavern is dedicated to either the local area's logging heritage or the bar's regular customers.
Kelly Hogan, of Rochester, plays pool inside the Brooklyn Tavern on Tuesday evening in Brooklyn.
Ciara Brough, who co-owns the Brooklyn Tavern with her husband, Warren, tends bar on Tuesday afternoon.
Ciara Brough, who co-owns the Brooklyn Tavern with her husband, Warren, tends bar on Tuesday afternoon. Brough explained that the bar relies heavily on hunters this time of year.
Nearly every single inch of wall space at the Brooklyn Tavern is dedicated to either the local area's logging heritage or the bar's regular customers. James Tortella, originally from southern New Jersey, takes in the scene at the tavern for the first time on Tuesday afternoon.
Customers are few and far between on weeknights at the Brooklyn Tavern.
A small plaque serves as a reminder that the seat is permanently reserved for Bruce Combs, a regular at the Brooklyn Tavern, and who also happens to be the father of Ciara Brough, who owns the isolated tavern with her husband, Warren.
Weyerhaeuser rankled hunters around Southwest Washington when it decided to restrict hunting on its forestlands, but now the company’s decision appears to be impacting more than just sportsmen.
When Warren and Ciara Brough bought the Brooklyn Tavern in January, they thought they were buying into a business that has proven itself for almost 90 years near the border of Lewis and Pacific counties.
Instead, they spent the hunting season looking out the windows wondering when someone would stop in.
“I was bored as hell,” said Ciara Brough, 29. “We open up early during hunting season, but when you come here at 8 a.m. and no one comes in and you sit here until 4, it’s frustrating.”
While most bars and restaurants look forward to summer as the busy part of the year, the Brooklyn Tavern has always counted on hunting season to fill its coffers.
In a letter written to several area newspapers, Ciara Brough claimed business is down by more than 75 percent at the historic tavern and that “Big Industry devastated another small business.”
“Hunting season was always the best time of year. There wasn’t a bar stool open from open to close, and we ended up having to stay open late,” Ciara Brough said. “This year, it has been pretty much empty with only a few locals stopping in.”
Earlier this year, Weyerhaeuser started limiting and charging for permits to access its five forestlands in Southwest Washington.
Brooklyn is in the company’s Pe Ell North area. To hunt its 105,530 acres, people had to first buy one of 550 permits at $200 a piece. The permits are required between August and January, but access is free the rest of the year.
With the increased fees and local elk herds suffering from hoof rot, many hunters turned to public lands or looked to going out of state. Nonetheless, the company sold all of its permits offered in Pe Ell North and South.
The Brooklyn Tavern has been open since 1927. Warren Brough, 29, said his family has owned it since he was 6. The family rebuilt it after it burned to the foundation in 1991. They lined the walls with cedar they pulled off an old barn and decorated it with antique logging equipment they bought at auction. He met Ciara there after she was hired to bartend when she was still Ciara Combs. The two married in 2013, and they bought the bar last January.
Ciara Brough has tended the Brooklyn Tavern for five years. Warren Brough served two tours in Iraq and was working as a diesel mechanic until this summer when Ciara Brough convinced him to quit and come to the bar full-time.
“We thought we were going to retire off of this,” Ciara Brough said.
But less than a year into ownership, the Broughs decided to reduce their hours to four days a week at the start of the year.
Ciara Brough said there are rumors that another bar 18 miles down the road might be shuttering soon, so maybe more people will visit the Brooklyn. Still, if things don’t improve, they might have to give up the business altogether.
“I’m panicking,” Ciara Brough said. “It’s not providing for us. It can barely pay for itself.”
The Brooklyn Tavern’s allure might be part of its problem. It’s in a remote wooded area off the beaten path. Going there feels like visiting a shrine built in homage to the glory days of logging in Southwest Washington, where visitors pay their respects by nursing a beer and shooting pool.
A radiant wood stove keeps the cold at bay and a big yellow lab named Moose roams around and drinks from the clean side of the spit trough.
The place would probably be always packed if it were anywhere else.
“That’s what everyone always says,” Ciara Brough said with some exasperation.
But the bar only sells bottles and cans of beer. There’s no hard liquor and no drafts.
There’s no TV, no WiFi and cellphones are all but useless.
“That’s one of the highlights of the place,” Warren said. “People get out here and start talking to other people … that’s the Brooklyn.”
There’s no way to prove Weyerhaeuser’s decisions are the root of the Brooklyn’s problems. But Warren said other nearby businesses have called and complained of similar issues since his wife vented her frustrations in a Facebook post.
The couple wants to keep the traditions alive, but at this point, things are far from certain. All the Broughs can do is wait and see.
“We’ll see how the next few months go,” Warren said.
