The Hub Bar and Restaurant was a staple of the downtown Centralia area up until 2022 when the owner sold it to former bartender Tim Filer and his business partners, who closed it down to begin renovations.
Now, those renovations are complete.
Last weekend, Filer and his business partners, Eddie and Pat McNally, held what was expected to be a soft opening for The Hub Bar & Restaurant as it returned to South Tower Avenue.
Customers turned out in droves to see the rejuvenated watering hole and eatery.
Filer is working on contacting the Centralia-Chehalis Chamber of Commerce for an official ribbon-cutting and grand reopening ceremony, which he hopes to hold on March 1.
The Hub is now open seven days a week for breakfast, lunch, dinner and late night food from 7 to 2 a.m.
The Chronicle met with Filer at The Hub on Tuesday, Feb. 4, to tour the newly renovated bar, restaurant and kitchen and learn more about Filer’s ownership and renovation process.
“From what I understand, before these parking lots were down here at the end of the road, there’s been a Hub bar, a Hub restaurant or Hub saloon on the 100 block of Tower Avenue for close to 100 years,” Filer said. “It’s just kind of migrated this way as the parking lots and more buildings came, so this is now its home.”
It is located at 110 S. Tower Ave. in downtown Centralia next to the Tower Tavern.
Filer said The Hub has changed each time new owners took over. Now, he and the McNallys are putting their own touches on it.
“Every generation has kind of changed what The Hub is, so that’s what I felt I was doing by changing what was here, but still trying to keep as much of it as I can,” Filer said. “That Pink Floyd poster that’s on the wall is the exact same poster that hung on the front door of The Hub almost the entire time I worked here. The back door that goes into the kitchen is the old front door of The Hub, with the porthole.”
Prior to purchasing the downtown Centralia staple, Filer had his eye on The Hub years as he knew the former owner, James “Jim” Francis, was eyeing retirement.
Filer’s ties to The Hub go back decades, as he started working there as one of his first jobs in 2005, beginning as a dishwasher and eventually working his way up to bartending and managing.
But his connection to The Hub goes back even further than that, as his mother first started working at The Hub in 1996.
“She worked here for several years,” he recalled. “I used to do my homework in one of the booths that was back here I remember in sixth grade. I’ve known the Francis family since then.”
When he first started working at The Hub in 2005, it was still owned by Jim Francis’ father, Forest “Curly” Francis. Curly died in 2012 and passed the business on to Jim and his sister.
But at 70 years old, after running The Hub for a few years Jim was “ready to retire and be done.”
In 2019, Filer quit working for The Hub to join the McNallys in opening up their own new business, McFiler’s Bar & Restaurant in Chehalis, but knew that Jim was still looking to retire.
Shortly after that, they were also involved in the purchase of the Chehalis Theater and its conversion into McFiler’s Chehalis Theater when Jim approached them offering to sell them The Hub.
Since they had just purchased the theater, they weren’t in a position to also purchase The Hub.
“Jim was like, ‘I’ll hold onto it for another year, and if you guys aren’t ready in a year, then I’ll sell it to whoever, but I’ll give you a year to get your stuff together,’” Filer said. “He gave us a year. We still weren’t ready, but we knew we had to pull the trigger or somebody else was going to buy it and we really wanted it.”
Finally, in 2022, Filer and the McNallys purchased The Hub, but were still focused on the theater’s reopening. Once McFiler’s Chehalis Theater was reopened, though, they began a nearly two-year renovation process.
Now, Filer is far from being a sixth grader doing homework at The Hub, and instead is dealing with the stresses of reopening a bar and restaurant and working on putting the finishing touches to the remodeled bar, including hanging glassware racks.
“It’s been an adventure, that’s for sure,” Filer said.
As for the general theme of The Hub, it has a 1970s vibe with burnt orange, yellow, brown and black walls, warm wall lighting and groovy light fixtures, a beer garden in the back with firepits, Frank Frazetta-style velvet paintings and classic movie and band posters.
Remodeling design efforts were led by interior designer Lisa Murphy.
“She’s also our creative director for all of our graphic design on everything, from the posters at the theater to all of our menus. She also runs the calendar at the theater and is the events coordinator. She wears a lot of hats. But in this regard, she was our interior designer, and she’s got a great eye for design,” Filer said.
The back wall by the bathrooms features a custom mural painted by the local Cosmic Tattoo artist Josh Paulino.
“Spectacular guy. Volunteered his time,” Filer said. “He was just looking to try to get some of his artwork visible downtown and asked us if we’d be willing to put some art of his on the wall, and I said absolutely. I’ve been a fan of his for years. It was a home run. We’re gonna try to convince him to work with me to do a big mural out back in the beer garden, too.”
The Hub’s front dining room also has a vectored recreation of a mural painted sometime in the late 1980s on the ceiling’s crown molding by a local folk artist named “Cherokee Jack.”
“Instead of getting rid of it — because it had gotten pretty nasty and in order to clean it essentially would have ruined it — I just took high resolution pictures of it, had them vectored and digitally recreated, put on vinyl wrap and put it back on the ceiling,” Filer said. “We had it done in black and white, because trying to render all the colors, there was just no way to do it justice. It would’ve looked cartoonish.”
The Hub’s new executive chef, Travis Rauch, worked as a line cook alongside Filer when Filer first started working there. Additionally, several other cooks currently working at the rejuvenated business also worked together with Filer when The Hub was still owned by the Francis family.
While the look inside The Hub has changed drastically, some of the menu items remain the same, including the original biscuits and gravy recipe that has been served for decades.
“I called Jim and said, ‘I need the gravy recipe,’” Filer said. “And he said, ‘If you’re gonna do the same gravy, you gotta do the same biscuits. You gotta buy the Dawn (Foods) pre-made biscuit mix. You just add water to it. It sounds chintzy, but it makes the best g-dd-mn biscuits on the planet.’”
Aside from biscuits and gravy, the breakfast menu includes a variety of omelettes, pancakes, waffles, French toast and other diner staples.
Lunch and dinner options include everything from burgers, sandwiches and steaks to pub staples such as buffalo wings and fish and chips.
“And we did also recently lower all our menu prices at both of our locations,” Filer added.
While The Hub’s new website is still in the works, Filer is also looking to help preserve the history of The Hub. On the McFiler’s website, there is a submission feature where patrons can submit photos from their time at The Hub prior to the renovation. Those interested in submitting photos can do so at https://www.mcfilerschehalistheater.com/the-hub.
For more information on The Hub Bar and Restaurant, follow or message the business on its Facebook page at https://tinyurl.com/msb27rby.
