An American flag wraps around the front of the Clayton Club Saloon in Clayton, Calif.
Jessica Yadegaran/SFGATE
One of the oldest continuously operating bars in all of California is closing its doors on March 29 after 153 years.
The Clayton Club Saloon is a dark, Western-themed dive bar with the cowboy boots of fallen regulars dangling from the ceiling and, outside, hitching posts for horses that are still used today. The bar has anchored the tiny historic downtown of Clayton, at the foot of Mount Diablo, since 1873. It has survived the Great Depression, Prohibition, and numerous owners and name changes.
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The reasons for the closure are complicated, as is the modern history of this gathering place, which has had its share of controversy. SFGATE interviewed five sources for this story, including the publisher of the local newspaper, the Pioneer, and the vice mayor of the town of 11,000. Both the publisher and the vice mayor relayed stories of bar fights and violence over the years. SFGATE also spoke with a former co-owner, who shared her efforts to bridge the divide between the bar’s “old-timers” and newer patrons.
In many ways, the bar is a symbol of the historic mining town itself: It’s split.
An interior view of the Clayton Club Saloon, in Clayton, Calif.
Image via Yelp user Shane N.
As in many Bay Area suburbs, there are old residents in Clayton, and then young families moving in, but the town’s growth has stagnated. “We’ve lived in the same house for about 38 years. The population has barely changed,” said longtime resident Jay Bedecarre, founder of Bay Area Festivals and part of the original administration at Concord Pavilion, which is just down the road. “The city has even been politically divided over a senior housing project right around the corner from the bar for years. There’s definitely a NIMBY factor here.”
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In 2020, the Clayton Club Saloon made headlines after the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control conducted an undercover investigation and arrested a bartender and a bouncer on suspicion of selling cocaine out of the bar, unbeknownst to Steven Barton, the owner at the time.
Barton did not respond to a request for an interview with SFGATE, but friend and Pioneer publisher Tamara Steiner spoke emotionally about Barton’s devotion to the Clayton Club Saloon from the time he took it over in 2007.
“When we started the Pioneer [in 2003], the bar had a terrible reputation,” she told SFGATE. “Fights and violence. Steven and his team absolutely turned it around. They had events. It was a delightful place. Those two assholes cost him a life savings. They pulled his license, and he was not able to save his bar.”
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Scenes from inside the Clayton Club Saloon, in Clayton, Calif.
Image via Yelp users Anthony P & Robin W
Steiner referred to Clayton as deeply divided between red and blue. “It’s an ugly split,” she said.
In 2020, Misty Leone and her partners, Dean Cafiero and Charles Hammond, sought to make the bar a more inclusive place when they formed a limited liability company and purchased it from Barton for $210,000, Leone told SFGATE.
Leone was fairly new to Clayton at the time. She had moved there following the death of her mother and had found the club during that dark period.
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“I didn’t know anything about it,” she said of the bar, describing how she stumbled upon it as she wandered downtown. “I walked into the back of the club, and that’s when the old-timers welcomed me with open arms. They asked me to play dice with them. And they became my family.”
She and her co-owners built on the traditions of the saloon’s previous stewards, hosting pool tournaments and popular barbecues on the back patio. In 2022, they participated in Clayton’s first Pride Parade. There was a procession down Main Street, right in front of the bar, with the theme “All the Colors of the Rainbow,” marking a historic moment for the city.
“It was not necessarily accepted by everyone in town,” Leone told SFGATE. “We definitely got some criticism online for supporting it.”
The window looking into Clayton Club Saloon, the oldest continuously operating business in downtown Clayton.
Jessica Yadegaran/SFGATE
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Still, like Barton, she tried to shed the Clayton Club of its reputation; she asked her longtime patrons to be tolerant and welcoming.
“Clayton Club historically has had issues and has not had the best clientele,” she said. “There have been a number of incidents over the years, a lot of fights. It’s a divided town. It can be unwelcoming to certain groups.” Leone said some patrons were “racist” but saw over time that some grew to be more open and accepting.
Leone and her partners never got to see their mission through, however. Co-owner Hammond died in 2022, leaving Leone and Cafiero in litigation ever since with Hammond’s next of kin over who is entitled to his portion of the bar (Hammond did not name a bar successor). In 2023, the Superior Court of Contra Costa County assigned a receiver to manage the bar. Now, the Clayton Club Saloon is set to be auctioned off on the steps of Clayton City Hall on April 3, she said.
The door and bronze plaque outside Clayton Club Saloon in downtown Clayton, Calif.
Jessica /SFGATE
Leone’s hope is that whoever takes over the bar keeps it open, and that young and old can come to appreciate it as much as she did. “I hope it maintains its historical value and integrity and everybody feels welcome there,” she said.
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Clayton Vice Mayor Richard Enea confirmed the April 3 auction to SFGATE and said there is already a bidder. He called the bar part of the fabric of the town. “It’s a piece of America. Small town America,” he said. “I’m going to miss it when it closes.”
Enea is a retired Clayton police officer and remembers breaking up fights at the bar. “Usually, you would get them to leave,” he said. “It was a rowdy cowboy bar.”
According to the Clayton Historical Society, the original bar was built by Jacob Rhine in 1873. Rhine operated it as a hotel, saloon and ice cream parlor at the corner of Main and Morris streets from 1874 to 1898. At that time, it was called the National Saloon.
An interior view of the Clayton Club Saloon, in Clayton, Calif.
Image via Yelp user Todd W.
In 1905, new owner Carl Berendsen renamed it Clayton Club and added a building that he had shipped across the bay from San Francisco to Martinez and transported over land to Clayton. It served as a saloon, restaurant and his family’s home until 1920. During Prohibition, the bar survived as a cafe.
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Ownership details are scarce between the 1930s and the 1950s. In 1959, Jennie and Carl Milano bought the club. Jennie’s daughter, Dolores, took over in the mid-’90s and restored the saloon, according to a bronze plaque outside.
A final backyard barbecue — bring your own meat — is planned for Sunday, starting at 10 a.m. “Let’s come together, raise a glass, and celebrate the history of our town and this place we’ve all shared,” the Facebook invite reads.